Claare Ny Gael - Manx Radio

Our 1791 tour guide, David Robertson, takes us over the mountains from Ballafesson to Foxdale, and then we go down the valley into St John's, before going back out along the Patrick Road towards Peel. Professor Van Helsing's drastic measures for dealing with Lucy Westenra after her death are thwarted. However, Mrs. Westenra's unusual will has, to the surprise of her solicitor, settled...

David Robertson tells us how the Manx people in the late eighteenth century experienced the beings that he refers to as "fairies" and the second sight - not that these were necessarily dismissed by leading figures of the day such as Joseph Addison. Our episode from Bram Stoker's Dracula follows the death of Lucy Westenra - or does it? Professor Van Helsing proposes a startling course...

David Robertson leads us from Kirk Malew to Kirk Christ Rushen, and on the way we pass some standing stones - but where? We then hear some romantic tales associated with Cronk Howe Mooar - the Fairy Hill at Ballafesson. Despite the ministrations of Professor Van Helsing and Dr John Seward, Arthur Holmwood's bride-to-be, Lucy Westenra, is failing. She's grateful to Professor Van Helsing for...

As David Robertson is visiting Castletown, then the seat of Government, he looks at the roles of what were then called the Governor-in-Chief, Edward Smith, and the Governor, Alexander Shaw, and also at peculiarities of Manx law - but is he right? We turn once again to Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' in translation into the Manx Gaelic, and hear more about poor Lucy Westenra who becomes restles...

Although David Robertson is describing his tour through the Island in 1791, he looks back 140 years to events of the 1650s, and we use this as a springboard to the history of the Stanley family. In this week's excerpt from our translation into the Manx Gaelic of Bram Stoker's 'Dracula', Mina Harker unwittingly writes cheerfully to Lucy Westenra, and Dr John Seward's assistant w...

Our tour through the Island in 1791 led by David Robertson has brought us to the Calf, where he refers to a 'woe-worn hermit' living in Elizabethan times. This was a legend used as the basis of a poem by Esther Nelson (1810-1843). We look at Esther Nelson and her poem, 'The Island Penitent : A Legend of the Calf'. In our Manx translation of Bram Stoker's 'Dracula', Quin...

After looking at the history and a legend of Keeill Vaayl, the chapel of St Michael that gives its name to the isle in Derbyhaven, we return to David Robertson's tour of 1791 as he takes us further south to the Calf and its avian inhabitants. An unlucky suitor of Lucy Westenra, Quincey Morris, has just given his blood to save Lucy. He is astute in realizing that another unlucky suitor, Dr John...

William Harrison retells The Legend of the Ruined Chapel in St Michael's Isle in a volume of material he collected and edited for The Manx Society in 1873, so we hear about the fate of Father Kelly and the chapel, to which we were steered originally by David Robertson's 1791 tour through the Island. Dr John Seward and Professor Van Helsing have broken into Lucy Westenra's house, findin...

Although David Robertson's 1791 tour through the Isle of Man has brought us to Derbyhaven, his reference to Keeill Vaayl, St Michael's Chapel, has already taken us to the Chronicles of the Kings of Man and the Isles, and now we've embarked on a lengthy legend, retold in 1873 by William Harrison, in which St Michael appears to a much-revered priest in the area. In our Manx translation o...

David Robertson has brought  us to Derbyhaven where we look at the Derby Fort on St Michael's Isle, and then at the chapel itself which gives its name to the isle, Keeill Vaayl, St Michael's Chapel. There's an early reference to it in the Chronicles of Man and the Isles, and then we turn to a legend that appeared in 1873 in a volume for the Manx Society, collected and edited by Wi...

David Robertson tells us the exciting tale of Ivar and Matilda, and the dastardly King Reginald, though the death of Reginald at Ivar's hand is not quite as told in the Chronicle of the Kings of Man and the Isles, which we dip into in a translation by Professor P A Munch. In this episode from Bram Stoker's Dracula, translated into the Manx Gaelic,  we hear more about the wolf, Bersick...

Our tour through the Isle of Man in 1791 with David Robertson brings us to Rushen Abbey, where we also admire the Crossag bridge and hear something of the history and the start of an ancient tale associated with it.  A wolf has escaped from a zoological gardens in London, and keeper Thomas Bilder is questioned about it by a reporter for the Pall Mall Gazette, in another episode from Bram Stok...

The Manx people of 1791 were notable for instigating court cases, and David Robertson gives us a fairly unedifying picture of how they proceeded. In our version in the Manx Gaelic of Bram Stoker's Dracula, once again Professor Van Helsing and Dr John Seward have to save the life of Lucy Westenra. With the Professor keeping watch over her, Lucy enjoys several nights of good sleep, and she quite...

Our 1791 tour guide, David Robertson, takes us out of Douglas and through Santon to Ballasalla. It gives us an opportunity to explore something of the history of Newtown (now Mount Murray) and an early industrial  enterprise in Ballasalla, using the power of the Silverburn to drive a cotton mill. Dr John Seward can't understand what Professor Van Helsing's reason is for his elaborate...

We learn a little more about Captain John Taubman of The Nunnery, before David Robertson points out other fine houses for hospitality in the neighbourhood of Douglas - Captain Southcote's Ballaughton, Lord Henry Murray's Atholl-lodge on Port-e-Chee and The Hague in Onchan, formerly the home of the late Richard Betham. We return to Captain Taubman for his work in agriculture. Professor Van...

David Robertson takes us on further from Captain Taubman's residence, The Nunnery, to Kirk Braddan. He introduces us to 'Graveyard Poetry', and also to a story told by another visitor, Colonel Richard Townley - to whom it sounds as though Robertson had something of an aversion. In the excerpt from our Manx translation of 'Dracula', Lucy Westenra arranges for Dr John Seward to s...

David Robertson has returned to Douglas in 1791, and gives us a description of the town and its inhabitants, before taking us a little further afield. However, there are tensions and difficulties as well as beauties and pleasure. In an episode from our translation into the Manx Gaelic of Bram Stoker's 'Dracula', Arthur Holmwood has given blood to save the life of his fiance, Lucy Weste...

David Robertson gives us a view of society in Douglas as it was in 1791, where some indulged in luxuries whilst others suffered destitution. We meet some characters whom we've encountered in other descriptions of the Island in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In our translation of Dracula into the Manx Gaelic, Professor Van Helsing and Dr John Seward agree that Lucy Westenra...

David Robertson guides us round some of the sights of Douglas as it was in 1791, and we look into the background of them with the help of later historians and more modern research. In Bram Stoker's Dracula, Professor Van Helsing has returned to examine Lucy Westenra, whose rapid deterioration since the previous day shocks Dr John Seward. Urgent action is required. As y kiaull ain 'sy chlaa...

David Robertson was an English customs officer who had been based in Douglas in the late 1780s. He returned to tour the Island in the summer of 1791, and subsequently published a book about it. From it, we get a view of the Island about 230 years ago. In our translation into the Manx Gaelic of Bram Stoker's Dracula, Dr John Seward has a patient called Renfield in his care whose case interests...

We recently heard of a visit to the Island in 1795. The previous year, a book was published of a tour of the Island made in 1791 by David Robertson, who had previously been based in Douglas as a customs officer. We look at the opening chapter of his book. In our extract from the Manx Gaelic translation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, Professor Abraham Van Helsing has come from Amsterdam at the reque...

We hear from Sara Goodwins and George Hobbs of Loaghtan Books about their most recent publication, 'Ramsey, Past and Present', based round images from Ray Stanfield's extensive collection. In Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' in our translation into the Manx Gaelic, Dr John Seward reports on his brief examination of Lucy Westenra to her worried fiance, Arthur Holmwood, but is puzzled...

Samuel William Ryley's family surname was Romney, but he adopted Ryley as a stage name and nom de plume some time between his 1795 visit to the Island and publication of his memoir in 1808. We've been looking at just a few pages from Volume 3 of his nine volume memoir. In our Manx translation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, we hear of Dr John Seward's experiences with his patient, Renfie...

In the autumn on 1795, Samuel William Ryley and his wife, Ann, are in Castletown, where again Samuel chances upon Dr Jacob Hammer and invites him to dine with them. The Dr has no money and is in dread of ending up as a debtor in Castle Rushen, but an official pass is not available to leave the Island until all debts are settled. Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' is an epistolary novel, and in ou...

Samuel William Ryley's memoir of his three months in the Island in 1795 includes encounters with Dr Jacob Hammer. Having bearded the doctor in his den to ask him to play his violin for him, Samuel Ryley waits at the theatre for his appearance. All is not well! In our Manx translation of 'Dracula' by Bram Stoker, the patient, Renfield, is found, brought back to the asylum and restrained...