We have all known Brenda Bridson as a stalwart of the Celtic Congress for many years, as joint secretary with her friend Brenda Williamson, as a committee member and as Eaghtyrane (President), but most of all as a friend. Her irrepressible sense of fun will be sorely missed. She had a profound knowledge of the […]
Katie Newton was inspired to explore the Island’s keeill sites after a presentation on them by Andy Johnson of Manx National Heritage. With her friend, Nicola Curphey, Katie set out on an unofficial project to visit a variety of sites. Many of them are on private property, so she and Nicola had to get permission […]
Chris Callow opened several interesting books for our inspection – the Liber Assedationis, or setting books, listing all the Lord of Mann’s lands and the names of tenants from the early 16th century; the Liber Vastarum, the wast books, showing changes of tenancy; plus Barony records, composition books and property deeds. James Wood’s Atlas of […]
Janice Quilliam has quite a project on the go, working her way through the thousands of slide photographs taken by her father, Leslie Quilliam, RBV and digitizing them. This has enabled her to share some of the fascinating images, particularly of Peel, which feature some views which have changed little over the years, others of […]
Tony Quirk took us on an interesting and entertaining journey through time, back to generations of the Quirk family who’d been fishermen, before a change of direction led to a family business, first as general grocers and then specialising as bakers. At the time that Tony’s family life was spent Living Above the Shop, the […]
James Franklin of Culture Vannin gave the presentation he had given on behalf of the Manx Branch at the 2019 International Celtic Congress in Newquay, Cornwall which was on the theme, Recording our past to help inform our future, copiously illustrated with videos, photographs and sound recordings. It was a slightly modified version of James’s talk […]
A Manks Concert for Sophia Morrison was held on the 160th anniversary of the birth of Sophia Morrison in Peel on 24th May 1859.
Sophia Morrison had already established language classes in Peel by the time she was a founder member and committee member of The Manx Language Society in 1899, and went on to become […]
Alison Jones was an excellent guide for our visit to the Centre for WWI Internment on Saturday 4th May.
After an opportunity to preview the exhibition which will be opened officially to the public on Friday 10th May, Alison gave an overview of how the original idea had been turned into the reality of an interesting […]
The theme chosen by the Cornish Branch of the Celtic Congress for this year’s International Celtic Congress in Newquay was Recording our past to help inform our future. About 50 delegates attended from all six Celtic countries, and from elsewhere, and heard six speakers who explored the topic in a variety of ways.
On behalf of […]
Steve Wright researched the Island’s political changes for his degree in History in 2017. For his presentation on Saturday 5th April he started with the great change in 1765, when the British Crown bought the regalities of the Lords of Man. With the British monarch as Lord of Man, a governor was appointed as the […]