[Untitled]
Landslip site on the west coast north of Fleshwick, associated with a traditional disaster involving the Dalby and Niarbyl fishing fleet.
William Cashen recorded the story as part of the customs and superstitions of Manx fishermen. According to the tradition, the fleet from Port Masooyl, the old name he used for the Niarbyl, went out and shot its nets on a Sunday night.
A south-easterly storm forced the boats to anchor beneath Cronk-yn-Irree-Laa. Part of the steep cliff then slid into the sea. The surf raised by the falling rock was said to have swamped the boats.
Cashen wrote that only one fisherman was left alive in Dalby village after the disaster, living at Ballelby. He also said the site of the landslip, called Garroo Clagh or the Rugged Stone, had been pointed out to him when he was a child by old men then over seventy years of age. They accompanied the story with the warning that he was never to fish on a Sunday night.
Gill later placed Garroo Clagh among what were remembered as the three great losses of the Peel herring fleet, together with the Mooir ny Fuill and the Wart near Spanish Head. He noted that the date of the disaster could not be securely established. An anonymous account of the Island published in 1809 already described it as having happened more than a century earlier.
Fishing on Sunday had also been restricted by law. Gill noted prohibitions in 1610 and further orders in 1714 and 1752.