The Island of Isle of Man

Population and area summary of the Island of Isle of Man

Visit Isle of Man (Manx) Council Website

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The Island of Isle of Man is located in the County of Isle of Man in Dependencies and Territories of Offshore, it covers an administrative area of 0Km² and in 2001 was home to a population of 0 persons, that represents % of that of Offshore and 0.00% of the population of the entire United Kingdom.

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Wildlife (Flora and Fauna) that may be seen in Isle of Man

Historical notes about the Isle of Man

Robertson begins his Tour through the Isle of Man (1794) in a tone appropriate to an intrepid explorer introducing a wild, barbarous, and practically undiscovered region to the notice of an awe-inspired public. Perhaps such a method of literary approach was inevitable at a time when the island was about as remote from the midland counties of England as, say, Turkey is to-day, and a sea-voyage was what Dr Johnson once called the unpleasantness of being in prison with the additional unpleasantness of the risk of drowning. In this happy twentieth century the manufacturing towns of northern England send their citizens to the "IOM" in countless thousands every summer; the Oldham operatives probably know far more about the geography of Douglas than that of Manchester; the Irish Sea is all but black with the scudding pleasure-steamers. The moral of which is that the biographer of the Isle of Man has a task that is at once fallaciously easy and elusively difficult. He has only to paint the portrait of a well-known and well-remembered friend; but he has also to bring out the subtle features which even the most ardent admirers have undoubtedly missed, the cast of countenance which makes this island so very much more than a tripper's paradise. For it is much to be feared that the august visitor gets his entertainment more from his kind than his natural environment. A casual visit to St Partick's Isle at Feel or Castle Rushen at Castletown may awaken a temporary suspicion that if nothing more than dancing-halls and bathing-machines is necessary to crate a heaven, there is no need to cross the sea to find it. But the fit of intelligent curiosity is usually a short-lived sensation!

Castletown is a good point at which to enter the ancient land which old Robertson found so strange and thrilling. For one thing it has steadily refused to disfigure its ancient face by accumulating boarding-houses and other badges of "civilisation." Its population has declined, and its castle and an air of dignity are about all that is left to remind the visitor that it was once the administrative capital of the island.

Rushen Castle is still one of the most illuminating feudal fortress left to us. Owing to the hardness of the stone of which it is build it looks curiously new, though it certainly dates back to Norman times, and perhaps earlier. It is all very plain, bare, and grim. The keep "frowns" in the approved style, the dungeon is as dank, gloomy, and sunless as the most fervent mediaevalist could desire, and even the "State Apartments" show that their occupants put security well before comfort. The number of popular stories that have grown up round this fortress is legion. Perhaps the best is a wondrous tale, a belief in which seems to have been regarded as a test of sanity and patriotism, as Walrond tells us that "ridiculous as the narration may appear, whoever seems to disbelieve it is looked on as a person of weak faith."

In the days before Merlin, so the story runs, the castle was inhabited by fairies, who were driven out by giants. Most of the latter were in turned expelled by a magician, who bound the rest in eternal spells in subterranean chamber. The truth of this fact was proved to demonstration by a bold person who obtained permission to explore for himself. This gentleman made his way down a long and dreary underground passage, at the end of which he came to a beautiful house. Through this he passed and down another gloomy tunnel to a second house, even finer than the first. Lamps were burning in every room, and he summoned up courage to peep through a window. What he saw was "a vast table of black marble, and on it extended, at full length, a man, or rather monster; for, by his account he could not be less than fourteen feet long, and ten or eleven round the body. This prodigious fabric lay as if sleeping, with his head on a book, and a sword by him, of a size answerable to the hand which it is supposed made use of it." After seeing this horrific spectacle our explorer had, in vulgar parlance, "had enough," and was only too glad to return by the way he came.

But if all this is pleasant moonshine, there is nothing unhistorical about the associations of the castle with the Earl of Derby, whose reply to Ireton's deferential summons to surrender the island in 1649 has become a classic:

Two years later this dauntless warrior was captured and executed in England, but his wife made preparations to defend Castle Rushen, and was only prevented form persisting in her design by a Manxman, Captain Christian, who induced the garrison to surrender the fortress to save the island the horrors of war. The Countess never forgave him, and after the Restoration he was shot on Hango Hill, a mound hard by which is now on the very edge of the sea. It is recorded that Christian "died most penitently and courageously, made a good end, prayed earnestly, made an excellent speech, and the next day was buried in chancel of Kirk Malew."

The oft-told tale that there is an underground passage between Rushen Abbey and Rushen Castle carries the mind back to another piece of Manx history - or perhaps we should say tradition so firmly rooted as to have taken on the colour of history. It is the story of wicked King Reginald of Man and his well-merited death at the hands of the Knight Ivar.

The knight was in love with a maiden - young and beauteous, of course - Matilda by name. His affection was returned, and though she was of comparatively humble birth Ivar regarded that as no obstacle to their union. The last barrier which separated them from eternal bliss was the royal consent, and consent was apparently never granted without inspection of the bride to be. This particular inspection had an unexpected and disconcerting result; the outrageous sovereign immediately conceived a violent passion for Matilda, incontinently banished the knight on a trumped up charge of crime, and immured the hapless lady in a remote chamber of Rushen Castle until such time as despair might induce her to yield to his will. Ivar, finding all his attempts to secure redress of no avail, became a monk and entered Rushen Abbey. He had long given her up for lost when one day, in one of his aimless and melancholy walks in the Abbey grounds, he discovered the entrance to a secret subterranean passage. Following up his discovery he explored for a great distance, until he at length heard the scream of a female in distress proceeding from the other side of the wall, in which there was a convenient chink. What the agonised voice said was, "Mother of God, save Matilda!" and what the chink revealed was his Matilda on the point of being overpowered by the ruffianly Reginald. Love lent our hero strength to batter down the intervening barrier, and he rushed upon the tyrant, who had obligingly - but somewhat carelessly - left his sword upon the table. The work of vengeance was soon over; the lovers escaped through the secret passage, and soon afterwards they crossed the sea to a Happy-Ever-After in Ireland.

It need hardly be said that the "authorities" frown severely on this story, and what is claimed to be the true version is recorded at the abbey ruins in the following terms: "May 30th, 1249. Reginald II, son of Olave II, King of Man, was killed by Ivar, a knight, in a meadow south of the Church of the Holy Trinity in Rushen, and was buried in Mary's Church (the Abbey), Rushen."

The ruins, such as they are, are at Ballasalla. Recent excavation has revealed the foundation of most of the principal buildings, but the visible remains are confirmed to parts of the church, the watchtower, the guest house, and a remarkable dovecot. It seems little less than a tragedy that so little should be left of a religious house which was of high renown and importance, and not merely because its church was the burial place of kings. The Abbot of Rushen was a Baron of the Isle in his right, and had his own temporal jurisdiction and court.

To-day "Rushen Abbey" means jam and honey. Very excellent they are too, whether exported or consumed in situ at a neighbouring cottage. In Ballasalla the patois of the manufacturing towns of northern England can be studied with ease, for the village is famous meeting-point of "trippers" of every clime and hue, some bound for Castletown, others for some good vantage-point like South Barrule or Cronk-ny-Irey-Lhaa, and yet others for the southern extremity of the island, where Port St Mary, Port Erin, and fine, wild coast scenery make a pleasant change for the dance-surfeited tourist from Douglas.

What an extraordinary mixture of the primitive and the sophisticated this remote corner is! There are times when Port Erin seems to be struggling desperately to catch the "tone" of the island's capital or Blackpool, a tone of blare, bluster and restlessness. At others it seems to have slipped back into the days when it was a mere fishing-village and quite content with the name of "Purt Shearan." Less than eighty years ago it could only muster forty houses, and those were the times when this grand piece of coast was left to the birds, the rabbits, and a few hardy mariners and their kind.

Some idea of this region in the old days can still be obtained by a visit to the lonely Calf Island. Apart from the lighthouses, about the only sign of human habitation is the ruin of "Bushell's House." Fortunately we are not left guessing why Bushell chose to live on the edge of nowhere, as he gave his seasons pretty clearly in a petition to Parliament somewhat about 1630:

Bushell's period of residence apparently followed that of an Elizabethan gentleman who is said to have been in high renown at the court of the Virgin Queen, but had the misfortune to kill his wife in a fit of jealousy. Searching the map for a secluded spot in which to hide from justice, or his own conscience, his eye fell upon the Calf of Man.

All this sounds rather melancholy, an emotion not permitted to the visitor to the Isle of Man, and certainly inexcusable in this picturesque corner where the cliffs and bays, with their stacks and chasms, are an unfailing and unending delight.

Spanish Head is another link with the golden days of good Queen Bess, for it changed its name from Sparolett after some of the Armada galleons had been wrecked at this point in 1588. It was a more notable event than that generation dreamed of, for tradition tells that among the survivors of the disaster was a cat. That cat was the ancestor of all the tail-less specimens of the creature to be found in the island. Of course this traditional origin of the Manx curiosity has been hotly disputed. It is recorded in Traill's History that "my observations on the structure and habits of the specimen in my possession leave little doubt on my mind of its being a mule, or crossed between the female cat and the buck rabbit." This seems pretty startling, and a later observation is perhaps more so: "Indeed, on this subject, although I have not been able to establish a single instance in which a female rumpy was known to produce young."

Port St Mary well illustrates the change that has come over the whole island during the last fifty or sixty years. The old village clusters round the harbour and retains the picturesque and primitive character which has always attracted artists on the search for natural human "copy." But the inner bay has become highly sophisticated with quite a professional sea-wall and phalanx of lodging-houses on the heights above.

Walk to Cregneish among the hills overlooking this remote corner, and it is easy enough to transport oneself to a dim and remote period when life was very simple and wants were few. A little way farther brings the traveller to a highly dilapidated but still interesting stone circle which was erected - for reasons about which the authorities are still to some extent at variance - by the men of the Bronze Age.

From Port Erin all the way to Peel the coast scenery is impressive and full of interest. The rugged grandeur of Cornwall may be lacking, but not even that famous county can show anything to match Niarbyl Bay, where Cronk-ny-Lrey-Lhaa, nearly 1,500 feet in height, sweeps down to the water's edge within a distance of half a mile. It is a magnificent spectacle which has few rivals anywhere in the British Isles.

Peel is the titbit of the island, from whatever point of view it is regarded. Nothing could be more picturesque than the little St Patrick's Isle crowned with the walls and other remains of its castle, its Round Tower, the ruins of St German's Cathedral, St Patrick's Church, and the old palace of the bishops. Fortress and ecclesiastical centre in one, the story of the island embodies some of the most stirring and picturesque passages in the history of the Isle of Man.

The oldest of all these buildings appears to be St Patrick's Church, or perhaps the Round Tower. Both date from pre-Conquest times and have obvious resemblances to similar structures to be found in Ireland, allowing for the fact that the Round Tower has been crowned with a comparatively modern superstructure. The remains of St German's Cathedral forcibly illustrate the progress made in the art of architecture between the tenth and thirteenth centuries. The rude work of the former era gives place to something worthy of the part played by the bishops in the corporate life of the island and their eminence as temporal no less than spiritual potentates.

The walls of the castle date in their present form probably from some time in the sixteenth century, as an earlier fortress is positively stated to have been utterly destroyed in 1313. But the castle was clearly in existence during that interval, for a t least two distinguished historical characters were detained there "in durance vile." One left a name behind, but the other a name plus (as some most stoutly maintain) a ghost! The first was Thomas Earl of Warwick, who had the good fortune to be saved from the block at the fifty-ninth minute of the eleventh hour, his sentence being commuted to imprisonment for life in the Isle of Man. The accession of Henry IV turned the tables on his enemies and he was soon released.

The celebrated Duchess of Gloucester, however, saw nothing of Fortune's smile. In 1447 she was banished to Peel Castle on a charge of trying to compass the King's death by witchcraft. The Falgan Chronicle records that;

The charge was ridiculous, of course, and the poor lady really fell a victim to the jealousy of Queen Margaret. Injustice triumphed all the same, for all her attempts at escape were frustrated and death only released her after seven years' weary captivity. No wonder her ghost haunts the crypt of the cathedral where she is supposed to have been imprisoned!

The Guard Room is associated with the curious tradition of the "Moddey Doo" a ghostly spaniel, large and black, which haunted the castle and became so familiar a spectre that when it came to warn itself (even ghosts feel the cold, it appears) at the fire in this room the soldiers took practically no notice of it, though they carefully "forebore swearing and profane discourse" in its presence, because it was an evil spirit. One day an unusually bold and enterprising soldier followed the spectral hound when it departed; he was ultimately found, but, as old Waldron writes: "by the distortions of his limbs and features, it might be guessed that he died in agonies more than is common in natural death."

With all these agreeably thrilling associations and legends, the grand old ruins have a never-failing interest, and even if they were suddenly engulfed in the sea, Peel would still be an attractive old place whose modern houses and other erections have not altogether robbed it of its ancient character.

Between Peel and Douglas both road and railway follow a deep depression through the range of heights which forms the backbone of the island. The learned say that this trench was once a sea-channel which divided Man into tow separate and distinct portions. But the rambler hereabouts cars less about the sensation of walking on an old sea bed than about the charm of his surroundings, the sweep of the hills, the relics and associations of the past, and the proximity of Greeba Castle, the residence of that Wizard of Manxland, Sir Hall Caine.

Close to Greeba is the dilapidated ruin of St Trinion's Church, the subject of another curious Manx legend. According to a tradition of ageless age the church has never been complete at any time, owing to the fact that a playful but somewhat tiresome spirit called the "Buggane" took immense pleasure in whirling off the roof as soon as it was on. An attempt to flout him was made by a pious tailor, who vowed to finish a pair of breeches under the newly-finished roof and defy the Buggane to bring it down upon his head. The little man stitched away strenuously and answered the spirit mockingly when it put in an appearance. But brave words did not prevent the Buggane from performing its usual trick, and the tailor leaped out of the church only just in time!

St John's and Tynwald Hill

At St John's is Tynwald Hill, the scene of that annual proclamation of fresh legislation which has been passed but cannot become law until it is announced to the assembled multitude. "Tynwald Day" is of course the chief date in the Manx political calendar, and the ceremony still has its ancient importance and something of its ancient picturesqueness. But a description of a modern "Tynwald Day" would read tamely by the side of Robertson's account of the ceremonies in 1417, which is worth quoting: "On the summit of the Mount," it runs, "was placed a chair of state, canopied with crimson velvet, and richly embroidered with gold. In this chair he [the Sovereign, at the time spoken of one of the Stanleys] was enthroned, his face fronting the east, and a sword in his hand, pointed towards Heaven. His Deemsters sate before him, and on the highest circle his Barons and beneficed men. On the middle circle were seated the twenty-four Keys, then styled ‘the worthiest men in the land'; and on the lowest circle, the Knights, Esquires, and Yeomen; while the Common People stood without the circle of the hill, with three Clerks in their surplices. The hill was guarded by the Coroners and Moars, armed with swords and axes; and a proclamation was issued by the Coroner of Glanfaba, denouncing those who should in the time of Tynwald murmur in the King's presence. Accordingly the people waited, with an awful silence, the future fate of their nation, in the promulgation of those laws which had for so many ages been industriously concealed from them. The venerable Deemsters then rising, with an audible voice, alternately published to this assembly several laws; which, though more an assertion of the King's prerogative than the rights of his subjects, were received by the people with reiterated acclamations." An odd feature of the mound is that it is said to be composed of soil from every parish in the island.

Douglas, the capital of the Isle of Man

Douglas can hardly expect to loom large in a work such as this. The bay is beautiful, of course, but the merrymaker has cast his unpleasing varnish over Nature's craftsmanship, and serried ranks of boarding-houses and apartments do not exactly improve a landscape. No doubt the business of entertaining a veritable horde of visitors - of the class that most deserve all a "holiday" can mean - is useful, if not noble work, but it is incompatible with the preservation of those beauties which made old travellers speak of Douglas with bated breath. Anyone who looks at the picture of "Douglass" in the Beauties of England and Wales (1802) will realise that its deterioration has been commensurate with its growth.

The genuine relics of the past hereabouts are all but non-existent. The deceptively mediaeval "Tower of Refuge" on an island in the bay has not yet celebrated its centenary, for it was built in 1832 at the suggestion of Sir William Hillary, who founded the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. It was none too soon, for the island then had a sinister reputation for the number of wrecks on the coast. The citizens were still under the impression of a terrible marine catastrophe that took place in Douglan Bay in September 1787. Of that disaster, which plunged a high proportion of the fishing population into mourning, Robertson has given a graphic description in his Tour.

Old Kirk Bradden falls into the undateable category, though the tower is a reconstruction of the late eighteenth century. But it is still of high interest for its collection of Runic crosses, antiquarian objects in which the island is singularly rich. Some of them are remarkably elaborate and beautiful, but the business of deciphering them would appear to have been painful and controversial, judging by the extraordinary variations in the variations given at different times.

A more or less modern house and a restored chapel are all that is left to represent the famous Nunnery of St Bridget, of which it was once recorded that "few monasteries ever exceeded it either in largeness or fine building. There are still some of the cloisters remaining, the ceilings of which discover they were the workmanship of the most masterly hands; nothing, in the whole creation, but what is imitated in curious carvings on it. The pillars supporting the arches are so thick as if that edifice was erected with a design to baffle the efforts of time, nor could it in more years than have elapsed since the coming of Christ have been so greatly defaced, had it received no injury but from time . . . . "

Memories of Bridget carry the mind inevitably to Maughold, for it was St Maughold who first turned the Irish lady into a nun, and that at the tender age of fourteen! Maughold himself was one of the most famous to repentant sinners. He was the chief of a gang of Irish freebooters until his conversion by St Patrick; and the manner of his coming to island was odd. It is said that "he embarked in a wicker boat, which drifted before the north wind towards the Isle of Man, where he was cast ashore at the headland, still known by his name, near the place where a city is said once to stood, but of which there are now no remains visible.

Maughold died in 554, but no part of the existing church goes back earlier than the eleventh century. Here again there is an interesting collection of Manx crosses, including a particularly fine one which was the parish cross of the village and therefore in a different category to the many Scandinavian crosses.

Another reminder of St Maughold's activities is the so-called "Wishing-Well." It takes some discovering in these times, but during the Middle Ages it was almost as great a place of pilgrimage as the shrine of the saint himself. "It is still resorted to," records an ancient chronicler, "as was the pool of Siloam of old, by every Manks invalid who believes in its efficacy . . .and it is held to be of the greatest importance to certain females to enjoy this beverage [ie its water] when seated in the saint's chair."

Hardly any part of the island is better known to the English-speaking world than Sulby Glen, thanks to its prominence in one of the most famous of Sir Hall Caine's novels. In the Manxman this delightful ravine at the foot of Mount Karrin is described in language which could not be improved upon:

Kirk Michael is a quiet and attractive village mainly famous for its collection of ancient carved crosses and stones dating from the period of the Norse occupation. One of the most celebrated is a pillar the inscription on which has been the subject of a famous controversy, the strong differenced of opinion being well illustrated by the translations offered by various expert (1) For the sins of Tvalfir, the son of Dural, this cross was erected by his mother Aftride; (2) Waltar, son of Thurulf, a knight right valiant, Lord of Frithu, the Father, Jesus Christ; (3) the most modern version Joalf, son of Thorolf the Red, erected this cross to his mother Frida.

Bishopscourt, the residence of the Bishop of Sodor and Man, has been almost completely modernised, and only a tower remains to remind the visitor that it has been the home of ecclesiastical head of the island for considerably more than six centuries. The house is also notable as virtually the solitary exception to the rule that the island is destitute of examples of purely domestic mediaeval architecture.

Ballaugh village is much haunted for its curious church. It looks most agreeably primitive and undoubtedly the bulk of the fabric is of high antiquity, though restoration has to a great extent transformed its original appearance.

Ramsey's reputation as a seaside resort suitable for those who find Douglas too strenuous and noisy seems somewhat inconsistent with the exciting historical events of which it has been the theatre in times long past. Who could think that this paradise of placid pleasure-seekers was the scene of the fierce action in which Godred Crovan, the Norseman, worsted the islanders, thanks to an ambuscade of three hundred men skilfully concealed in a wood on Sky Hill? And how many visitors realise that the lovely bay has often been thronged with the ships of men of war (in the most literal sense) bent on conquest or plunder? Times have changed, and the only "invasion" Ramsey knows now is the daily assault by battalions of visitors, which is one of the features of the summer season. The archaeological highbrow will no doubt be grievously disappointed with what he finds, for the ancient streets have given place to quite an up-to-date "lay-out," and it is certainly no longer possible to record, as Wood did in the eighteenth century, that "houses abound with broken panes of glass, the want of which is supplied by pieces of old tea chests, etc."

Geographically, the most striking feature of this end of the island is the extraordinary contrast its flat, marshy plain presents to the mountainous region farther south. Experts tell us that the responsible agent is the action of the sea, but whatever the cause the effect is curious enough.