George Quarrie (1846-1926) was born at Ballavair, Kirk Bride, and worked as a commission agent in Barrow-in-Furness before emigrating to the United States in the 1880s, where he spent roughly four decades as a New York journalist. Drawing on childhood memories of 1860s Kirk Bride, he wrote extensive poetry and prose in Manx dialect, including 'The Melliah' on traditional harvest customs (which he claimed Hall Caine drew on for The Manxman); folklorist W.W. Gill judged the literary merit modest but the linguistic record 'extremely valuable'.