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| .: The end of Juan Christian |
THE END OF THE ISLE OF MAN ROAD PIRATE
 Following the seagull, the crowd charged up to Skye Hill, where Juan Christian had stopped to eat a meal. As he saw the crowd approach, he loaded his cannons with grape shot, and turned into the wind.
The angry throng surged forward, and he opened fire, killing dozens with his first broadside. But they kept coming, and so het set his course directly for them and sailed through their lines at high speed, running down many and panicking those that survived his headlong rush.
He turned again, and was trying to load his cannons for a second time when the seagull dived at him and cut open his forehead with its beak. Blinded by the trickle of blood, Juan Christian tried to change course back through the crowd, but badly misjudged and plunged over a cliff, down the hill and into the Irish sea.
The crowd gathered hundreds of feet above him and threw a barrage of stones down onto the crippled sailwagon floating below. Christian, by a miracle, had managed to steer the wagon well enough so it floated right side up, but he was rudderless and in dagner of being sawmped by the waves.
He could do little else - for his legendary seasickness returned and the resulting nausea all but finished him off. The crowd kept hurling stones, eventually holing the wagon which sank quickly with Christian still on board.
The last anybody ever saw of him was his defiant green face, and his fist raised high in anger.
The people of Ramsey held an impromptu party on the summit of Skye Hill in celebration, and in the morning went back to their homes to rebuild the town.
But just a few months later, tales began circulating of an angry ghost dressed in dirty black or grey rages which was seen waving and retching on Skye hill. Known as the Tantaloo, this haunt is alleged to be the restless spirit of Christian, who died envying his infamous brother and cursing the name Rhumsaa.
In 1845, his image was captured by an amateur photographer at Holy Trinity Church in Lezayre, at the foot of Skye Hill.Labels: Bounty, Fletcher Christian, ghosts, Juan Christian, ramsey, seagulls, Skye Hill, tantallo
Written at 12:38 by
G
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| .: Isle of Man Pirates |
PART ONE: JUAN 'THE BUTCHER' CHRISTIAN
 So who was Juan 'The Butcher' Christian, apart from the Isle of Man's most notorious pirate?
Well, simply put he was the younger brother of Bounty mutineer Fletcher Christian, born a year after Fletcher in 1765. The two were very close and when Fletcher decided he wanted a life on the waves, Juan decided he’d quite like to go to sea, too.
However, the moment he set foot on a rowing boat at Douglas harbour which was to take him to his first job as cabin boy he was violently seasick over the sailors who were accompanying him. They threw him overboard a few metres from shore, and he swam back, vowing never to go to sea again.
But the call of the maritime life was strong, and he made several more attempts to leave dry land – all with the same stomach-churning results.
By the time he was 25, Juan Christian had resigned himself to being a failure as a seaman. But a chance meeting with an old school friend, who was a carpenter, was to change all of that.
The pair met in the Castle Arms, commonly known as the Gluepot, in Castletown in 1790. Juan’s friend – called Drikly Qualtrough – was working on a novel horseless carriage which used sails, ropes and masts.
But he’d run into engineering troubles over how to steer such a contraption. Juan immediately saw a way of fixing the axles to a gear system and having the whole thing hooked up to a wheel.
Excitedly, both rushed back to Qualtrough’s workshop in Colby to complete the sailwagon. They worked through the night, and the next day being a breezy but sunny one, they decided to test it there and then.
Such was there success that a pamphlet was produced by a local printer about the strange machine. It read: “such was the ferocitomeness of its movement, the sky itself seem’d to reel and jog like a drunk’n Irish sot”.
But such criticism deterred neither, and they resolved to sail their wagon to Ramsey the next day in time to show it off at the market there.
But they had badly underestimated the grade down the hill into Ramsey from Maughold, and as the sailwagon careered out of control Drikly Qualtrough was thrown from it and dashed his head on a rock. He was killed instantly.
When Juan managed to stop the device in Ramsey, he was almost hanged for murder by an angry crowd who had to leap aside as it sped straight through houses, market stalls and almost through innocent bystanders.
Juan, showing quick wits for which he was later to become infamous, grabbed a sword from one of those threatening him, leapt aboard the sailwagon and took off.Labels: Bounty, castletown, colby, Fletcher Christian, gluepot, isle of man, isle of man manx, Juan Christian, mutiny, pirates, ramsey
Written at 18:50 by
G
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