Isle of Man
Ellan Vannin: a self-governing Crown Dependency in the middle of the Irish Sea, about 85,000 people, not part of the United Kingdom and never part of the European Union. It has its own parliament, Tynwald, which still promulgates its laws outdoors on a mound at St John's every July, and whose surviving record begins in 1417 rather than in the 979 that gets quoted. It has its own Celtic language, Gaelg, which was written down using a spelling system borrowed from Elizabethan English, was declared dead by UNESCO in 2009 while hundreds of people spoke it, and is now taught to children at the Bunscoill Ghaelgagh. Norse kings ruled here for centuries and left runic crosses instead of portraits. The island gave some women the vote in 1881, and the restriction on that came from the unelected chamber, not the elected one. It held twenty thousand civilians behind barbed wire at Knockaloe in one war and interned Jewish refugees as enemy aliens in the next. It has the oldest motorcycle race in the world and a mountain course that has killed more people than anyone officially counts. And it has a wheel, a herring fleet, an electric railway, a tailless cat and a folklore in which you greet the fairies on the way past.
A chronological documentary of 1,174 moments spanning 1830–2026 on Loreline.
Curated by Olivier · last updated 2026-09-20
Eras
- Tynwald, The parliament and the ceremony. Tynwald claims to be the oldest continuous parliament in the world, and that claim survives only on the word continuous: Iceland's Althing is older, founded in 930, but was disbanded in 1800 and restored in 1845. The traditional date of 979 has no documentary support and appears to have been chosen so that a millennium could be celebrated in 1979; the earliest surviving House of Keys record is 1417. What is not in doubt is the practice: laws are still promulgated outdoors in Manx and English on Tynwald Hill at St John's every July. Also the Revestment of 1765, the Lord of Mann, the deemsters, and the 1881 Act that gave some women the vote, where the elected House of Keys wanted to go further than the appointed Legislative Council allowed.
- Stones, What the deep past actually left: megalithic tombs like Cashtal yn Ard and King Orry's Grave, the Meayll stone circle, the keeills that are early Christian chapels, and above all the Manx runic crosses and cross slabs, which carry Norse names and Norse myth cut into Christian monuments. This is where the Viking centuries live, because no contemporary image of any king of Mann exists and no honest archive can invent one. Also Castle Rushen and Peel Castle, Rushen Abbey, and the excavations that produced the Viking burials and the silver hoards.
- Land, Inland and agricultural: the glens, Snaefell and North Barrule, the curraghs, sod hedges and stone walls, the upland and the farms. The Manx Loaghtan, the native four-horned sheep, and Cregneash, the crofting village kept as a working museum. Also the Manx cat, which is a genuine and documented mutation of the Brachyury gene rather than a tourist invention, but which carries Manx syndrome, a real spinal welfare problem that an honest archive shows alongside the charm.
- The Season, From the 1870s the island sold itself to industrial Lancashire and Yorkshire as a holiday, and for a century that was the economy. Steam Packet paddle steamers into Douglas, boarding houses along the promenade, the Gaiety Theatre, the Villa Marina, Derby Castle, wakes weeks, deckchairs and the camera obscura. Then the collapse when cheap flights to Spain arrived, and what the island became instead. The Summerland fire of 2 August 1973, in which fifty people died at the Douglas leisure complex, belongs to this segment and is handled soberly.
- Folklore, Labelled as folklore throughout, never as fact. Manannan mac Lir, the sea god who shrouds the island in mist and may or may not have given it its name. The Moddey Dhoo, the black dog of Peel Castle, first written down in the 1700s. The Buggane, the Phynnodderee, and the Fairy Bridge at Ballalonna where you greet the Little People as you pass. The taboo words, including the one for rat. Hop tu Naa with its turnip lanterns rather than pumpkins, Yn Chruinnaght, the Manx Folk Awards, and the traditional music and dance that came back with the language.
- Racing, The Isle of Man TT and the Manx Grand Prix. The race began in 1907 on the St John's Short Course and moved to the 37 and three quarter mile Snaefell Mountain Course in 1911, which is a public road closed for the occasion and has never been a purpose-built circuit. Held to roughly a tenth of this archive on purpose, because the island is not a racetrack. On the deaths, which are real and heavily quoted: the large published figure covers the entire Mountain Course including the Manx Grand Prix and the Clubman TT rather than the TT alone, the lists separate competitors from officials, marshals and spectators, and no organisation maintains an authoritative count. This archive states scope rather than a bare number, and carries the memorials rather than the crashes.
- Internment, Twice in the twentieth century Britain interned civilians on this island. Knockaloe near Peel held on the order of twenty thousand men in the First World War and was effectively a town. In the Second World War the camps were requisitioned boarding houses with wire around them: Rushen at Port Erin and Port St Mary, which was the women's camp and unlike anything else in the system; Hutchinson in Douglas, which became known as the artists' camp and held Kurt Schwitters and Hellmuth Weissenborn among others; and Mooragh, Central Promenade and Peveril. Many of those interned as enemy aliens were Jewish refugees who had fled Nazism, which is the fact the whole subject turns on. The Arandora Star, carrying internees for deportation, was torpedoed in July 1940. Treated here as documentary record, never as spectacle.
- Gaelg, The Manx language, the largest segment in this archive because it is the island's most distinctive thing and because Manx speakers have put a great deal of it online themselves. Gaelg is a Goidelic language, sister to Irish and Scottish Gaelic, written with a spelling system based on Elizabethan English rather than classical Gaelic orthography, which is why it looks so unlike its relatives on the page. Ned Maddrell, the last native speaker from a Manx-speaking community, died on 27 December 1974. In 2009 UNESCO classified the language as extinct while hundreds of people spoke it, the linguist Jennifer Kewley Draskau objected publicly, and the classification was later revised to critically endangered. Around 2,223 people reported conversational ability in 2021, and the Bunscoill Ghaelgagh at St John's teaches children through the medium of Manx.
- Railways, An unusual survival: the island kept its Victorian transport when everywhere else scrapped it. The Isle of Man Steam Railway still runs steam to Port Erin, the Manx Electric Railway has been working since the 1890s with original tramcars, the Snaefell Mountain Railway climbs to the summit, and the Douglas horse tramway still runs along the promenade. Also the Groudle Glen Railway, the stations and sheds, and the rolling stock that would be in a museum anywhere else and is in daily service here.
- Mining, Lead, zinc, silver and copper, and the engineering that drained the workings. The Great Laxey Wheel, Lady Isabella, built in 1854 to pump water from the Laxey mines and still the largest working waterwheel in the world. Foxdale, the Snaefell mine, the adits and engine houses and washing floors, the mine railway, and the spoil that is still in the landscape. For a few decades in the nineteenth century this small island was a serious producer of zinc ore.
- Coast, The sea on every side, and the wildlife that comes with it. The Calf of Man and its bird observatory, Manx shearwaters, choughs, razorbills and kittiwakes, basking sharks in summer, seals, the Sound, Langness, the Point of Ayre, Spanish Head and the Chicken Rock lighthouse. The whole island is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, the only entire jurisdiction to hold that status. Also Raad ny Foillan, the coastal path that goes all the way round, and the herring fishery that the island lived on before it lived on visitors.
- Music, Added after the first build, because music had been scattered through folklore and language and deserved a home. Manx traditional song and tune, much of it sung in Gaelg: Arrane Oie Vie and the carvals, the island's own carol tradition. The dance sides Perree Bane and Ny Fennee, and Yn Chruinnaght, the inter-Celtic festival where the island meets Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall and Brittany. Fiddle, harp and the Manx bagpipe revival, sessions in pubs, the choirs and the Manx Music Festival that everyone calls the Guild, and the Manx Folk Awards where the children compete. Then the living end of it: Ruth Keggin singing in Manx, and Davy Knowles from Port St Mary playing blues. Culture Vannin has put more of this online than anyone, which is why so much of this segment comes from them.
- - Tynwald berthed at the Coffee Palace Berth, Douglas, Isle of Man.. The Steam Packet vessel Tynwald berthed at the Coffee Palace Berth, Douglas. The Isle of Man Steam Packet Company was founded in 1830 and describes itself as the oldest continuously operating passenger shipping company in the world.
- - Archaeological Journal, Volume 3, 0065. An engraving of the Cathedral of St German at Peel from the Archaeological Journal, volume 3, 1846. Antiquarian recording of this kind is how the island's monuments entered the scholarly record.
- - Snaefell pictured at Douglas.. The Steam Packet vessel Snaefell of 1863 at Douglas. The company named a succession of ships Snaefell after the island's highest point, Manx Sniaull, from the Old Norse for snow mountain.
- - Isle of Man Steam Packet Company packet steamer, Fenella. The Steam Packet's iron twin-screw steamer SS Fenella, No. 76303, built 1881. The company's Victorian fleet was built for a passenger trade that ran to hundreds of thousands of arrivals a season.
- - Tim mylrea and the buggane. ', an illustration from 'The Phynodderee, and other legends of the Isle of Man', 1882. The Buggane is a malicious shape-shifting giant of Manx legend; the best known one is said to have torn the roof off St Trinian's Church each time builders finished it, which is offered as the reason the chapel stands roofless.
- - Flaxney Stowell (1846-1916) - Castletown Harbour - 1955-0345 - Manx Museum. 'Castletown Harbour' by Flaxney Stowell (1846 to 1916), 1884, in the Manx Museum collection. Castletown was the island's capital until Tynwald moved to Douglas in 1874, ten years before this was painted.
- - John Miller Nicholson (1840-1913) - A Summer Afternoon, Douglas Promenade - 1954-2501-050 - Manx Museum. 'A Summer Afternoon, Douglas Promenade' by John Miller Nicholson (1840 to 1913), painted in 1888. Nicholson is the island's principal Victorian painter and recorded Douglas at the height of its resort trade.
- - Douglas Head, Isle of Man. 781 (NBY 419249). An Oilette postcard of Douglas Head and the harbour, published around 1905. The postcard trade is itself evidence of the resort boom: the island was being sold as an image to a mass market that arrived by steamer.
- - Norton TT 1907 01. The Norton with a Peugeot engine on which Rem Fowler won the twin-cylinder class of the first Tourist Trophy in 1907. Charlie Collier won the single-cylinder class and the race overall on a Matchless, covering ten laps of the St John's Short Course in 4 hours 8 minutes 8 seconds at an average of 38.21 miles per hour.
- - Snaefell leaving Ramsey. The Steam Packet vessel Snaefell of 1910 leaving Ramsey (Rhumsaa). Ramsey is the island's second port and the northern terminus of the Manx Electric Railway.
- - Box, souvenir (AM 2006.92.6-11). A souvenir box made by a German internee signing himself F.P.C. at the Douglas Aliens Detention Camp during the First World War. Fine handwork in bone, wood and straw is the best documented material category to come out of Manx internment, made by men with time and almost nothing else.
- - Box, souvenir (AM 2006.92.6-3). One of a set of souvenir boxes made by the internee F.P.C. at the Douglas Aliens Detention Camp in the First World War. The Douglas camp, in a former Cunningham holiday camp, opened before Knockaloe and was the island's first.
- - Box, souvenir (AM 2006.92.6-18). Another souvenir box by the internee F.P.C., Douglas Aliens Detention Camp, First World War. Craft work of this kind was sold, traded and sent home, and it is one of the few ways interned men entered the record in their own hand.
- - Box, souvenir (AM 2006.92.6-6). A carved souvenir box from the Douglas Aliens Detention Camp, made by a German civilian interned on the island during the First World War. The maker is known only by the initials F.P.C.
- - Eerste Wereldoorlog, propaganda, ansichtkaarten, prentbriefkaarten, SFA018000848. An orchestra of German prisoners at the Douglas camp, First World War, reproduced on a propaganda postcard. Organised music, theatre and teaching recur through the whole century of Manx internment, in the WWI camps and again in the WWII camps at Douglas and Onchan.
- - Box, souvenir (AM 2006.92.6-8). A souvenir box from the Douglas Aliens Detention Camp made by the internee F.P.C. during the First World War. Objects like these travelled: this one is now in the Auckland Museum collection.
- - Box, souvenir (AM 2006.92.6-7). Souvenir box carved by the German internee F.P.C. at Douglas during the First World War. Bone, wood and straw work of this kind is strongly attested in Manx museum collections.
- - Box, souvenir (AM 2006.92.6-12). A souvenir box made at the Douglas Aliens Detention Camp by the German internee F.P.C., First World War.
- - Box, souvenir (AM 2006.92.6-14). Another of the F.P.C. souvenir boxes from Douglas Aliens Detention Camp. The Douglas camp was set up in a requisitioned holiday camp and preceded Knockaloe, which opened in November 1914.
- - Box, souvenir (AM 2006.92.6-16). A souvenir box carved by the German internee F.P.C. at Douglas Aliens Detention Camp during the First World War, now in the Auckland Museum.
- - Waiting For Dinner in the Huts Art.IWMART17056. 'Waiting For Dinner in the Huts', painted inside a Manx internment camp in 1916, with bunks along the walls and clothing hung from hooks. Knockaloe was built of wooden huts, unlike the requisitioned boarding houses used in the Second World War.
- - Overnight Snowfall Melting Into Slush Art.IWMART17057. 'Overnight Snowfall Melting Into Slush', a camp yard between wooden huts, painted by an internee in 1917. Knockaloe held around 23,000 men, making it effectively one of the largest settlements in the Irish Sea.
- - View of a Pow Camp, Isle of Man, 1915-1919 Art.IWMART17053. A view down into a First World War prisoner camp on the island, painted by an internee between 1915 and 1919. WWI Knockaloe material is by far the better documented and more freely available seam of Manx internment imagery.
- - George Kenner and brother Benno washing salt herrings on the Isle of Man PoW Camp 10.9.1918. George Kenner and his brother Benno washing salt herrings at Knockaloe in 1918. Kenner was a German civilian interned for the duration, and the paintings and drawings he made inside the camp are among the fullest visual records of it that exist.
- - Storm and Rainbow, Symbol for Near End of War 1918 Art.IWMART17055. 'Storm and Rainbow, Symbol for Near End of War', painted in a Manx internment camp in 1918. The painter was one of the German civilians held at Knockaloe under Britain's enemy alien policy.
- - Last Supper Before Returning Feb. 1919 Art.IWMART17054. 'Last Supper Before Returning', February 1919, painted inside a Manx internment camp as men prepared to leave. Knockaloe operated until 1919, four months after the armistice.
- - Manx Gaelic recording - Ned Maddrell (Last native Manx Speaker). Archive audio of Ned Maddrell speaking Manx Gaelic. Maddrell, a fisherman from Cregneash (Creneash), was the last native speaker from a Manx-speaking community and died on 27 December 1974. He learned Gaelg from his great-aunt Margaret Taubman, who had no English.
- - [SA 0042] Ellyn yn ny Geal concert in Douglas. A concert recording held in the Manx sound archive. Audio of this kind survives because recording equipment was sent to the island in 1948 at the direction of Eamon de Valera, then Taoiseach, to capture the last native speakers.
- - [SA 0041] Interview with John Thomas Kaighen speaking Manx Gaelic and a choir rehearsal. An archival recording of a native Manx speaker. Recording equipment was sent to the island in 1948 at the direction of Eamon de Valera, then Taoiseach, specifically to capture the last native speakers, which is why audio of them exists at all. Choral singing is long established on the island, and the Manx Music Festival, known locally as the Guild, has been its main competitive stage.
- - Manx language and dialect archive recordings: Skeealyn Vannin, Disk 2 Track 7iii. An archive recording from Skeealyn Vannin, Manx National Heritage's published collection of Manx language and dialect recordings made of the island's last native speakers.
- - Manx language and dialect archive recordings: Skeealyn Vannin, Disk 2 Track 7ii. A Skeealyn Vannin archive track. Recording equipment was sent to the island in 1948 at the direction of Eamon de Valera, then Taoiseach, specifically to capture the last native speakers of Manx Gaelic before the generation was gone.
- - Manx language and dialect archive recordings: Skeealyn Vannin, Disk 2 Track 6ii. An archive recording of spoken Manx from the Skeealyn Vannin collection held by Manx National Heritage. Actual audio of native Gaelg speakers survives because the Irish state intervened in 1948.
- - Isle of Man TT 1950. Footage of the 1950 Isle of Man TT. By this date the race had been running over the 37.73-mile Mountain Course since 1911; the first TT of 1907 was held on the shorter St John's Short Course on the west of the island.
- - Geoff Duke Isle of Man TT 1951. Geoff Duke at the 1951 Isle of Man TT. Duke won the Senior and Junior TTs that year and went on to six world championships, and he later settled on the island.
- - Manx Electric Railway, Laxey - 1963. The Manx Electric Railway at Laxey in 1963. The MER passed through several changes of ownership and near-closure in the twentieth century before the Manx government took it on.
- - Snaefell Mountain Railway - 1963. The Snaefell Mountain Railway in 1963. The line has been carrying passengers to the island's highest point since 1895 without interruption of its route.
- - Tynwald, Isle of Man. Tynwald Hill at St John's, photographed in December 1966. The mound is stepped in four tiers, and the ceremony held on it is the reason Tynwald describes itself as the oldest parliament in continuous existence; Iceland's Althing was founded earlier, in 930, but was suspended between 1800 and 1845.
- - Kirk Michael Station, IOM. Kirk Michael station in 1970. The line through Kirk Michael on the west coast closed in the 1960s, and its trackbed is now a walking route.
- - 1970: MANX ALIVE! Life on the Isle of Man | Man Alive | Voice of the People | BBC Archive. The BBC's 'Man Alive' filmed island life in 1970. The island's population at the 2021 census was 84,069, of whom just under half were born on the island and 38.2 per cent in the United Kingdom.
- - Fishing boats at Peel, Isle of Man. Fishing boats at Peel in 1972. The island's herring fleet had already collapsed by then: from over 300 nickeys based on the island in 1879 to just 25 boats in 1922, and the modern Manx fishery is scallop and queen scallop.
- - Summerland, Douglas, Isle of Man, & the tragic 1973 fire, by band members Mike & Linda Fletcher. A song by band members on the Summerland fire of 2 August 1973 at Douglas (Doolish), in which fifty people died. It remains the island's deadliest peacetime disaster.
- - Manx Electric Railway train approaching Cornaa 1973. Manx Electric Railway winter saloon 21 with trailer 41 approaching Cornaa in 1973, on the way to Ramsey. The northern half of the line runs through the glens of the east coast and was under threat of closure through much of this period.
- - Isle of Man Holiday 1970s. Amateur film of an Isle of Man holiday in the 1970s. The mass market for the island was Lancashire and Yorkshire mill workers travelling on Wakes Weeks, a trade that declined sharply as cheap air travel to the Mediterranean spread.
- - View from the Laxey Wheel. Laxey village seen from the top of Lady Isabella in 1979. The wheel stands over 22 metres in diameter and visitors climb the stair around its rim.
- - Ferry on the Mersey. An Isle of Man ferry on the Mersey in 1979. The heyday of holiday traffic had passed by then, but the boats were still packed at peak times.
- - 05882 (858) 30-06-1982 of the Isle of Man Railways steam tank locomotive No 11 "Maitland" at Douglas, Isle.... Isle of Man Railway steam tank locomotive No. 11, photographed on 30 June 1982. The line's locomotives are Beyer, Peacock two-foot-six-inch gauge engines, some over a century old and still working.
- - Laxey Wheel, 1980s - Film 7211. Film archive footage of the Laxey Wheel in the 1980s. The wheel had ceased industrial work with the mines and was already a visitor attraction, restored and maintained as a monument.
- - 1986 Isle of Man TT 80th Anniversary Documentary. A documentary made for the 80th anniversary of the TT in 1986. Counting from the first race of 28 May 1907, organised by the Auto-Cycle Club over ten laps of the St John's Short Course with 25 entrants.
- - The train now departing - Steam on the Isle of Man - 1988. Steam on the Isle of Man in 1988. The Steam Railway was reduced to the Douglas to Port Erin line in the 1960s and 1970s after the rest of the network closed, and has run continuously since.
- - JoeyDunlopTT1992Gooseneck125ccm. Joey Dunlop at the Gooseneck on his 125cc machine at the 1992 Isle of Man TT. Dunlop was Northern Irish rather than Manx, took 26 TT wins and was killed in a road race in Estonia in 2000.
…and 1,124 more moments.
Full text archive: /loreline-text/isle-of-man.md
