Claare Ny Gael - Manx Radio

The opening of the steam railway line between Douglas and Port Erin was very much a case of will it/won't it, perhaps/perhaps not. We hear about the reasons for difficulties and delays before it eventually did open for public travel - without ceremony - on Saturday 1st August 1874. Sean O Bradaigh made a translation into Irish of one of Dora Broome's stories of Manx folklore. We hear a tra...

With elections to some of the local authorities during the week, it also happens to have been the anniversary of the first local authority election held in the Island. It took place in Douglas on 24th July 1860 - ironically as the result of legislation at a time when the House of Keys was unelected and unaccountable. Neddy Beg Hom Ruy's reminscences of the herring fishery bring us to the end o...

Yn Chruinnaght's Celtic Gathering 2021 will be taking place from Monday 19th July to Sunday 25th July. We look ahead to what will be happening with Chloe Woolley and Jo Callister. You can find out more at  https://ynchruinnaght.com/ or at https://www.facebook.com/pg/CelticGatheringIOM/ We also hear more about the nineteenth century herring fishery from a first-hand source, the reminiscenc...

A parish and the ancient and modern cathedral are dedicated to Noo Carmane, St German, and he is celebrated in the Island on 13th July.  His story is an inter-Celtic one, starting in Brittany, and coming to Mannin via Ireland and Wales. Neddy Beg's reminiscences, written by him in Manx, continue to focus on his time at the fishing. Some of them were included in letters he wrote whilst he...

Reform of the calendar in 1753 - deemed to have been backdated to 1752 - means that the Great Midsummer Fair is held in St John's on 5th July by the modern calendar, but 24th June (formerly reckoned to be midsummer) by the old style. Midsummer was a fire festival associated with Manninan, but the church made it St John the Baptist's Day. However, the Tynwald ceremony includes links with th...

Robert Corteen was born in 1790 and was something of a polymath, successful in many fields of study and achievement, and not only in the Isle of Man. Whilst working for Messrs Gelling in Douglas, he constructed machinery to supply gas to light St Matthew's Church and other businesses on Douglas quayside. This was first used on 27th June 1832. We continue to hear about the exploits of Neddy Beg...

King Robert the Bruce is a well-known figure in Scottish history. Perhaps less-known is the fact that he spent a month here in the Island, arriving on 18th May 1313 and leaving after the fall of Castle Rushen after a siege, when the Lord Dougal Mac Dowyl held out for a month. A W Moore gives the date of the end of that siege as 21st June 1313.  Neddy Beg Hom Ruy's reminiscences give us a...

A meeting of Ramsey Commissioners on 13th June 1928 became the cause of quite a lot of interest and sundry mocking comments, not only in the Island's newspapers, but in the British national dailies and on the BBC. Should they put out the flags on the promenade on a Sunday, or was that commercialising and compromising the Sabbath? Even the ministers of religion thought it was a minor matter. In...

We find out more about Neddy Beg Hom Ruy and his work in Manx. In his Skeealyn Aesop he was translating from the English. In his letters, reminiscences and other stories, he writes the Manx as he hears it and thinks it, so it gives a window on the language in the nineteenth century. The foundation stone for Peel Breakwater was laid 6th June 1863 by the Lieutenant-Governor, Henry Brougham Loch. We...

We finish off those of Aesop's Fables that were translated into Manx by Neddy Beg Hom Ruy - twenty-five of them were published by Karl Roeder in 1901. We also hear excerpts from a letter from Neddy Beg from his son's Derbyshire  home to his friend, Rev John Kewley, in 1899. Bishop Samuel Rutter had a short episcopacy, and is well-known for the epitaph he wrote for himself, about shari...

In the early nineteenth century, there was very little money of a small denomination in circulation. The effect was to stifle trade, so from 1804 enterprising traders began to issue their own tokens for small denominations, known as 'card money' . Some issued more that they could redeem. However, the biggest problem was of forgery. The situation came into such disrepute that Tynwald passed...

By 1911 there were no visible remains of a keeill known as Cabbal Rhullickey. Renowned scholar J J Kneen traced its name to an earlier Cabbal Ronnican, named for an Irish saint who was celebrated on 15th May with a fair in Ballaugh. Nearby, Bishopscourt was the scene of a fire which destroyed much of the middle block and led to the death of Mary Gardner in the early hours of Tuesday 16th May 1893....

At 6.00am on Monday 10th May 1897, the morning shift of 35 miners climbed down into the shaft of the Great Snaefell Mine. Within a short time, 19 of them were dead, overcome by a build up of carbon monoxide after a fire which had occurred some time after the final shift on Saturday and during the Sunday when the mine was not being worked. Our short story in Manx is about a tourist in Florence...

A party of 37 men left Peel aboard a two-masted schooner called the Vixen to sail to Melbourne in Australia. The idea was that they would seek their fortune in digging for gold. We hear a poem about their departure and then entries in the diary kept by Henry Maddrell Graves about some of the events on their voyage. After 92 days - which included 21 days becalmed - they reached Melbourne on 2nd May...

We look back 200 years to the  first edition of a newspaper called The Rising Sun, or, Mona's Herald, which was published on Tuesday 24th April 1821. We then look at the sweep of the history of the newspaper itself, which ran from 1826 to 1906 as The Manx Sun. Our informant is the man who was the final editor of the newspaper, and later Librarian and Director of the Manx Museum, William C...

Having looked last time at the enthronement in April of a Bishop appointed the previous November, we do the same this time, but rather than going back to 1697-8 in the case of Thomas Wilson, we look only as far as 1911-12 in the case of James Denton Thompson. His enthronement took place in St George's Church in Douglas on Thursday 18th April 1912. Our short story in Manx is about a young scien...

The figure of Bishop Thomas Wilson looms large in Manx history. We go back to the very start of his episcopacy, with his appointment in November 1697 and the other official stages leading up to his installation and enthronement in St German's Cathedral on St Patrick's Isle on 11th April 1698. There then followed a long tenure of office until his death in 1755. Our short story is based on o...

We look at the background to yn Chaisht, the Eastertide - , starting with the origin of the names of this moveable feast of the church in English and in the Celtic languages. The Manx traditions of Jeheiney Caisht, Good Friday, include an apparently pagan element. Overall Manx farmers were pessimistic about stock born at this time and by some it was considered an unlucky time. Our short story in M...

Johnson's Guidebook of 1850 describes Laxey as a cluster of cottages down by the shore, with a dangerous, steep approach down from Fairy Cottage on the south side and Minorca on the north. Leech's Guide of 1861 shows a larger, bustling Laxey with a mining industry. Contemporary newspapers tell of the New Road, opened 28th February 1854, with its magnificent viaducts, giving travellers...

The steamer Victoria from Fleetwood for Belfast had run aground at Port Mooar in Maughold. Edward and Isabella Christian of Baldromma were fined for keeping goods from the wreck. However, two servants at Baldromma stashed away more loot in the adjacent churchyard. This led to a parochial visitation and remonstrance by Bishop Thomas Vowler Short with the police and other officials on 21st March 184...

We recap and hear more from brilliant academic and author, Dr Jennifer Kewley Draskau, about her latest novel, 'Transportee', available as a book or in a Kindle edition. Jennifer explains how she has based it on the transportation of felons from Castle Rushen to Jamaica in 1698, and on her research into slavery and indentured servitude and much more. With the feast day dedicated to St Patr...

We hear from academic and author, Dr Jennifer Kewley Draskau, about the background to her recently-launched novel, 'Transportee', taking as its starting point the decision in 1698 to commute the death penalty on a dozen felons lying in chains in Castle Rushen to one of transportation to Jamaica. In celebration of Gool Piran, the Feast Day of St Piran (5th March), patron saint of Cornwall,...

Bishop Mark Hildesley and his household were greeted on the morning of 28th February 1760 by the thunder of cannon. From Jurby Head they witnessed the sea battle between three Royal Navy vessels under Commander John Elliot and three vessels of the French Royale under Francois Thurot - a battle in which Thurot was killed. Despite celebrating with the Royal Navy, Thurot was widely mourned in the Isl...

Bishop Thomas Wilson enjoyed a long episcopacy from 1697 to 1755. However, relations with his former tutorial charge, James Stanley, who became the Tenth Earl of Derby in 1702, became strained in the early 1700s. We hear of one point of friction over the case of Mary Hendricks. Our short story in Manx is a translation of a mysterious piece by Virginia Woolf. In fact, it's shorter than usual, s...

The efforts by the Douglas Fire Brigade to deal with a fire in the belfry of St Thomas's Church in Douglas attracted some negative comments from the newspapers of the day. We find out why as we hear a description of the events of Sunday evening, 11th February 1912. Our story in Manx is by a social worker from Sheffield, Amanda Marples, who won a prize as a new author. In this Manx translation...