Crossing points on the Island where tradition holds the fairies pass. Travellers say 'hello fairies' when crossing. Not antiquarian curiosity but living practice, observed by visitors and residents alike into the present day. Part of the accommodation between the visible and invisible worlds that defines Manx cultural identity.
The interior of Fairy Hill in Rushen was supposed to be the palace of the Fairy King. Many a tale was told of the midnight revels of the fairy court of Mona. The fairies were especially fond of the glen at Glentrammon, and were always abroad during the harvest moon. The fairy hills were the ancient tumuli, the burial mounds of an older people, and the connection between the fairy world and the land of the dead ran through everything.
Men and women who had acquired the reputation of being able to counter the malevolence of the fairies through incantations and herbs. Their remedies were usually applied to the cure of cattle. One of the most renowned, Teare of Ballawbane, told Train in 1833 that the malevolence of the fairies had caused the seed potatoes to become tainted in the ground, and that all the potatoes he had taken under his protection had vegetated vigorously. The fairy doctors occupied a recognised position in the community, mediating between the human and fairy worlds through knowledge passed down across generations.
A young sailor, coming ashore at Douglas on a fine moonlit night, was crossing the mountain toward his sister's house at Kirk Malew when he heard the noise of horses, a huntsman's halloo, and the finest horn in the world. He counted thirteen riders, all dressed in green, gallantly mounted, riding so close he could have touched them. He was so delighted he would gladly have followed. When he reached his sister and told the story, she clapped her hands in relief: those you saw were fairies, and it is well they did not take you away with them. Waldron recorded the story as though it had happened to someone he knew.
In January 1775, Colonel William Christian chaired the committee that produced the Fincastle Resolutions, rejecting Parliament’s claim of unlimited power over the colonies. The Resolutions were addressed to Patrick Henry. Christian later married Patrick Henry’s sister Anne and served as a Colonel in the Revolution. Whether his family originated on the Isle of Man is a persistent tradition but unproven. His father Israel Christian appears in Augusta County records from around 1749 as a merchant. A Manx probate record from 1751 places Dollin Christian — son of the Reverend John Christian, vicar of Jurby — dying “on the coast of Virginia” around 1745. If Israel was Dollin’s son, the constitutional instinct that drove the Fincastle Resolutions may trace back to a Manx Deemster’s bench. The chain is plausible but the connecting evidence has not been found.
In 1927, a century after the first major wave of emigration, Manx Americans organised a homecoming visit to the Isle of Man. The homecoming marked a turning point in the relationship between the diaspora and the homeland, demonstrating that after a century of settlement in America the connection to the island remained strong. It was one of several organised homecoming visits that would continue through the twentieth century, including a major visit in 1952. The 1927 homecoming helped build the momentum that led to the founding of the North American Manx Association the following year.
The first International Manx Convention was held in Cleveland, Ohio, in August 1928. John E. Christian was elected chairman of the new organisation, and the Manx Choral Society performed at the event. The convention marked the founding of the North American Manx Association as a successor to Mona's Relief Society, transforming what had been a Cleveland-based welfare organisation into a continent-wide cultural heritage body.
The Manx Heritage Foundation's schools resource card records that fishermen "in early times" prayed to Saint Patrick before putting to sea: Dy bannee Noo Parick shinyn as nyn maatey — "St Patrick bless us and our boat." This was the formal prayer, spoken at the harbour, addressed to the saint.
But a song called Mannanan Beg Mac y Leir also circulated among the fishing communities, collected in Kiaull yn Theay — the Music of the People, published by Culture Vannin. The formal prayer went to the saint. The song remembered the god. Both lived in the same community, often in the same boat, and nobody saw a problem with that.
The two existed side by side because the accommodation ran deeper than theology. Moore records that Teare's daughter was still practising the charming of fishing nets in the late nineteenth century: "she is resorted to by the fishermen for the sake of having their nets charmed, and so cause them to be lucky in their fishing." The power passed man to woman to man, alternating through generations. The Church knew. The fishermen knew. The fish, presumably, did not mind.
Bishop Wilson composed a formal prayer for the use of fishermen, printed in Manx by Bishop Hildesley. Train records it. A formal ecclesiastical composition, separate from folk tradition, issued by a bishop who understood that the sea demanded its own forms of address. Between the bishop's prayer, the saint's blessing, and the god's song, the Manx fisherman had every authority covered.
In 1888, four Christians served simultaneously as judges in Virginia: Joseph Christian on the Supreme Court of Appeals, George L. Christian on the Husting Court of Richmond, J.H. Christian on the County Court of Charles City County, and Thomas Christian on the County Courts of Middlesex and Matthews Counties. Whether the instinct to adjudicate came from a Manx Deemster’s bench or from somewhere else entirely, the pattern is striking. The Christian family had served as Deemsters on the Isle of Man since 1408.
The Gaiety Theatre is a cement rendered masonry structure, which is the equivalent of three or four storeys in height, terraced between the Sefton Hotel and the Marina Arcade. The facade (there being really no other 'sides architecture' in that the 'skin deep' decoration has been applied to the surface of the building to stimulate the imagination of would-be customers and the massing of the structure serves to invite them in rather than to indicate what is happening inside. Thus the overall impression is of two rather 'Moorish' commissionaries (3 storeys high) holding an undulating blanket between them for you to pass beneath on a journey to the light hearted. It would not be possible to convey 'charm' if this building were described in purely architectural terms, for it has no such pretentions. It is well named. No interior inspection has been made. The Gaiety Theatre is perhaps the best example of this type of building (or for that matter any entertainment structure) on the island.
The site of a post-medieval horse engine. It had a roofed horse-walk or a wheel-house, which formerly housed the 19th century threshing engine. The structure survives at The Garey and has been converted into a swimming pool.
A detailed constitutional and legal analysis arguing that the 1765 Revestment of the Isle of Man violated a 'Tripartite Jurisdictional Lock' established in the 1609 Act, and that Parliament misapplied Pratt-Yorke doctrine (intended for acquired territories) to a coordinate kingdom. The paper contends that the British State engaged in a deliberate 'category error' and subsequent 'coup d'état,' treating sovereign rights as private assets. It extends this analysis to explain Parliament's parallel failures in America and India.
This earthwork, now of very linear form, is allegedly of prehistoric date and represents a Bronze Age burial mound. There are certainly several monuments of similar origin in the locality - particularly on Peel Hill - and the name associated with it - the Giant's Grave - suggests that a substantial burial cist may have been observed, though no record of such a discovery is known.
The earthwork's linear nature, and relationship with the defences behind it, suggest that it may have an alternative, and more recent, origin as a medieval rampart.
A hairy goblin or sprite of similar character to the Phynnodderee but more unpredictable. Cregeen defined the Glashtyn as a goblin or sprite. He frequented lonely spots and was useful to people or otherwise as the caprice of the moment led him. The name also applied to the water-horse, the Cabbyl-Ushtey, a shape-shifting creature who could appear as a handsome young man to lure victims, then transform and drag them into the water. The people around Glen Meay believed the glen below the waterfall was haunted by the spirit of a man who mistook the Glashtyn for an ordinary horse, mounted it, and was carried into the sea and drowned.
The findspot of a flint scatter of Mesolithic date now held in the Cowley Collection at the Manx Museum.
The area formerly known as the Glebe was part of Ballakilmurray and was centred on the field numbered 1125 on the 1869 1:2500 scale Ordnance Survey map (the boundaries of which were subsequently subject to minor alteration by the construction of the Manx Northern Railway line).
The findspot of a scatter of early prehistoric flints, including 3 polished flint adzes, a leaf-shaped arrowhead, two flaked arrowheads, a discoid flint knife, and a rectangular scraper.
The findspot of a scatter of Mesolithic flints, which include 8 Heavy-blade type arrowheads, 2 smaller arrowheads, 2 leaf-shaped arrowheads (1 pressure-flaked), 1 diamond shaped arrowhead, 4 flakes, 1 scraper, 1 awl, and 1 core.
The glens run down from the interior to the coast: Dhoon Glen, Glen Maye, Glen Helen, Sulby. They carry streams that have been cutting their valleys since the ice age ended. The glens are part of the Island's character, sheltered valleys where the landscape softens after the exposed moorland of the uplands.
A post-medieval public house in Castletown.
This complex structure dates from at least the later 18th century: the older part of the building opposite Castle Rushen is present on a watercolour by John 'Warwick' Smith, whose collection of 26 views of the Isle of Man were prepared in the early 1790s and are notable for their accuracy.
Officially named the Castle Arms, the public house is popularly referred to as the Glue Pot.
The building is inscribed in te Protected Buildings Register (No. 25)
James Stanley, 7th Earl of Derby, standing on South Barrule and imagining the commercial prosperity the Isle of Man could achieve. A vision of the Island's potential from the lord who loved it most — and who would die for his king.
