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| .: The Running of the Welshman |
 Of all of the customs and ancient holidays ever celebrated in the Isle of Man, the most notorious was the Running of the Welsh.
It was outlawed early on in the 1900s but had been marked each May 9 for a hundred years or so.
Legend has it that a Welsh invasion fleet foundered off the coast of Port Soderick during the Viking reign of the Island, and only one of the Welsh warriors managed to make it ashore.
He was quickly spotted and chased Northwards across the Island to Laxey where he was finally captured and executed.
Each year, the worthies of the Isle of Man would gather on the summit of Snaefell with high-powered rifles, while one of the Welsh prisoners in the Island’s jail was forced to run along the Mountain. The gathered gentlefolk would each attempt to shoot him or her – and a reward of a hundred guineas was offered to anybody who could score a hit.
The prize was never won – the distances involved were huge and the odds of hitting the moving target was very slim indeed.
But the event fell into disrepute after a Welsh politician was falsely accused of public drunkenness and sent to jail. He claimed he’d been framed and had been sent to jail solely to provide a Welshman for the ceremony.
The ensuing legal case showed deep levels of corruption within the Manx legal profession, and the holiday was outlawed.Labels: holiday, isle of man, isle of man manx, Running the Welshman, snaefell
Written at 15:34 by
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| .: The Isle of Man Phynnodderee |
 The photo on the left is the only documented shot of the Phynnodderee, a tortured spirit which roams the highlands of the Isle of Man.
It was taken in 1926 by Gideon Whitfullington-Phorcast, a housemaster at King William’s College, as he was shooting pheasants on Snaefell. He later told the Mona’s Gazette newspaper: “It was a hell of a beast, hairy and shaggy – looked a bit French if you ask me. It took one look at Lucy, my gun, and turned tail. Damned coward, what? I barely managed to get a shot off at the blighter.”
But it was that one shot that is said to have sealed Whitfullington-Phorcast’s doom. The Phynnodderee doesn’t like people who take pot-shots at him, and the teacher vanished one day whilst out rambling. He was never seen again and was said to have been taken by the Phynnodderee.
The legend surrounding the beast is an interesting one. It’s said that an Elven knight fell in love with a woman from Peel who’d given her virtue to him a little bit too easily.
Like most of the women in the Sunset City, she proved something of a nag, and was continually complaining that he was out til all hours carousing and drinking and debauching with the other faeries.
After they’d been in love for some months, it was time for the Rehollys vooar yn ouyr, the annual royal high harvest festival which was marked by a huge faerie feast at Glen Rushen.
But his Manx fishwife refused to let him go and made him stay in their house at Peel to put up shelves, change fuses and other such petty tasks. But this was his downfall – his absence offended the Elfin King, who cursed him and banished him from the faerie kingdom forever.
Now, he lives on, undying, doomed to wander the Manx mountains as a strange, sad, solitary wanderer. He is said to be something between a man and a beast, covered with black shaggy hair and having fiery eyes. Many stories are related by the Manx peasantry of his prodigious strength and his never-ending quest for the hidden gates to the faerie kingdom.
Still more stories are told about English fools who arrive in the Isle of Man to hunt the Phynnodderee and the hidden treasure of the dowry he never had the chance to pay for his wife. Seeking out the Phynnodderee, it’s said, is like asking the Devil to turn Hell’s heating up.Labels: faerie, fairy, Gideon Whitfullington-Phorcast, isle of man, isle of man manx, king william's college, legends, Mona’s Gazette, Peel, Phynnodderee, snaefell
Written at 13:49 by
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| .: Triumph of MI7 |
 The Isle of Man’s most successful spy was James Qualtrough, codename K-6, who served in MI7 in the 1960s.
MI7 (Manx Intelligence 7) was set up shortly after the UK formed its MI5 and MI6 units. The Isle of Man government didn’t want to be left behind in the Cold War espionage stakes and so formed the Manx Intelligence branch.
The seven at the end of the name is generally though to be because six units had already been formed and disbanded but in fact the only reason the designation was given was to be one better than the best the UK had to offer.
K-6 was one of the first agents to be sent abroad on an active mission, according to secret documents recently released under the Freedom of Information Act in the UK.
He was sent to Jersey after the Manx government suspected the Channel Islands were infiltrating the Manx Treasury – then the Board of Finance. In 1968, the Isle of Man issued a £1 note which was found to contain the words “This is worthless, invest elsewhere”.
At the time, the Isle of Man was forming the taxation strategy which was to turn it into the popular tax haven it has become today – yet when proposals were put before Tynwald in a confidential report, the recommendations included getting rid of personal allowances and raising the basic rate of income tax to 74 per cent.
K-6 parachuted into St Helier in November 1968 and spent three months infiltrating the civil service. Eventually, he was given a job in Jersey’s Ministry of Information and discovered an active operation against the Isle of Man codenamed “Manxdown”.
This consisted of a high-frequency signal which was transmitted from a bunker beneath a Cotil (a steep south facing slope used to grow Jersey potatoes), bounced off a satellite, and directed into a radio beside the bed of the chairman of the Isle of Man Board of Finance.
All of this took place in the dead of night, and it transpired the subliminal messages had been having their insidious effect for more than four months.
K-6 broke into the bunker through air vents, crawled along the air shafts until he found the control room, and dropped into the room – taking its occupants by surprise. Unfortunately, he was captured by the personal bodyguards of the then head of Jersey, a secretive figure known as “La Tête”. He bound and gagged K-6 and dangled him over a large pool in the bunker containing anacondas, great white sharks and piranha fish. He was then slowly lowered into the pool as La Tête went to the control room to fire off the final message which would ruin the Manx economy for ever.
But K-6 managed to pick the lock, use the chains to swing to the side of the pool and knocked out a guard. He put on the guard’s uniform and headed for the control station.
There, he found the bunker’s self-destruct switch and hit it before fleeing the complex in an electric cart – escaping just in time to see the entire hillside blown sky-high.
He made his way back to the Isle of Man where he was awarded the Cross of Mannanan, the highest honour a Manxman can receive.Labels: isle of man, isle of man manx, James Qualtrough, Jersey, K-6, Manx intelligence, MI7
Written at 17:54 by
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| .: The Russo-Manx Conflict |
 In the 1970s, the Manx government landed itself in an awkward position when it declared war on the Soviet Union. Naturally, the Isle of Man was the underdog in any such confrontation, and difficulties with nationalists burning down English homes here meant the UK refused to send troops on the Island’s behalf.
The situation came about when the Russians detained a shipment of cotton in 1979. A shipload of the material was held in the port of Murmansk on its way to the Isle of Man.
It was to be used to make Manx flags to celebrate the 1,000th anniversary of Tynwald, when it was anticipated patriotism would reach such a fervour that every man, woman and child were to be issued with three flags – one for informal occasions, one to hang above their home and one for formal events.
But the Russian actions in taking the four hundred tonnes of cotton threatened to throw the proposals into disarray just four months before the anniversary was due to be officially celebrated.
The holds of the MV Horabl Mufftingler were pillaged and the cotton taken off to be sewn into uniforms for troops who were to invade Afghanistan later that year.
In response, the Manx government demanded to have the material replaced – but the strongly-worded request was flatly turned down by the USSR.
Tynwald was due to debate the issue, but thanks to a stomach virus which was doing the rounds, only four MHKs were present on the day.
They were: Juan Quilligan, Craig Creash, John Cullister, and David Karran. All four had already contracted the bug and were recovering at the time. Unfortunately, they were slightly delirious and so weren’t in full control of their faculties, which led to them passing a motion declaring immediate and total war on the Eastern bloc.
They ordered the men of the Manx navy (pictured above) to enter Russian territorial waters and open fire at will on and shipping from any Soviet country.
As luck would have it, the navy consisted of a single fishing boat which was armed with nothing more threatening than nets and boat hooks. But its crew duly set sail with heavy hearts.
In the background, the UK was nervously trying to negotiate with the Russians – who were preparing to fire nuclear missiles at Douglas, Ramsey, Peel and – for some reason – Sulby.
These would have crossed British airspace and Westminster feared the country’s automatic defences would activate and fire back. Desperate shuttle diplomacy was carried out, and eventually a deal was struck.
Under it, the Manx navy would return to port, the Isle of Man government would issue a statement apologising for its actions and the Russians would stand down, replace the cotton taken with half a million ready-made Manx flags.
The situation was defused, and a Soviet-Manx peace treaty was signed in the Railway Hotel in Union Mills. The whole affair was known as the Russo-Manx Conflict, and was the last time the Manx Navy saw action before it was disbanded in 1998.Labels: isle of man, isle of man manx, millennium, navy, Russia, tynwald, USSR
Written at 17:01 by
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| .: Lunda Tysker's tale |
 The Lunda Tysker Stone (left) was discovered by archaeologists in the Isle of Man in 1980, and it adds credence to an ancient legend which dates back to the time of the Viking invasion.
According to the story, Lunda Tysker was a warrior who arrived with King Godred Crovan and who quickly became one of the King’s trusted leaders thanks to his ingenuity and bravery.
Unfortunately, Lunda Tysker was also a touch eccentric and was given to odd fancies and obsessions which would distract him from the day to day business of reigning over a nation of unruly Celts.
This came to a head when he decided he would like to touch the moon. Despite entreaties from his men not to waste his time on something so foolish, he sat down and tried to devise a way of reaching so high.
Eventually, he came up with a primitive catapult which he would load himself onto before being launched skywards towards his destination. Setting to work, he gathered the necessary lumber and eventually completed the machine.
On the day he planned to achieve his goal, he invited Godred Crovan and the rest of the Viking warriors to see his triumph. They gathered in Sulby where Tysker went about making final preparations and adjustments to his contraption – much to the amusement of the other Norsemen.
At the appointed time, with the moon high in the sky, Tysker climbed aboard and ordered one of the men to pull away the last piece of wood which would release the mechanism.
With an enormous twanging sound, the machine flipped forward and sent him soaring into the sky. He roared with joy as his trajectory took him higher and higher.
What Lunda Tysker didn’t realise, however, was that an Irish fleet led by King Cuchilaineamon O’Connolimiskin had set out that morning carrying a heavily armed force who intended to take Godred Crovan’s kingdom by force.
They were within sight of the Isle of Man when Tysker suddenly fell on them out of the sky, killing the king instantly. He brushed himself down, miraculously unharmed, and let out a bellow of disappointment at not reaching the moon.
Of course, this created panic within the fleet – the Irish troops had suddenly been left leaderless by a flying Viking who, it seemed, would slaughter them all in short order.
Abandoning their flagship, they turned tail and fled back to Ireland carrying tales of the Manx madmen. In fact, in the Gaelic tongue, Lunda Tysker became a phrase denoting madness. This was eventually anglicised to “lunatic”, which if commonly mistaken as a French loan word.
The Lunda Tysker Stone, unearthed during a dig at Sulby by Liverpool University, clearly shows Tysker on board the catapult waiting to be hurled aloft. The Stone was sent to the British Museum, despite protests from the Manx Government, and remains a bone of contention between England and the Isle of Man to this day.Labels: Godred Crovan, Ireland, isle of man, isle of man manx, Lunda Tysker, Sulby, Vikings
Written at 16:30 by
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| .: Manx palm trees |
 Field Marshal Thrumplock O’Crackerley (pictured) came to live in the Isle of Man in 1904 after a lifetime spent in the service of the British Army.
His career had been to say the least undistinguished up to that point, after he’d presided over some of the worst military debacles in the Boer War. He was perhaps best known in martial circles for ordering a troop of cavalry to charge into the sea in pursuit of a small gunboat which had been shelling his command post on a beach.
But O’Crackerley will forever be remembered in the Isle of Man as the man who introduced the Manx palm tree.
He’d discovered the hardy tree whilst on a leave of absence in New Zealand. O’Crackerley was profoundly deaf and also colour-blind, which led him to identify English soldiers stationed in New Zealand as Chinese. His lack of knowledge of world politics also led him to believe that Britain was currently at war with the Oriental power, and so one morning after an especially heavy rum-drinking session in Auckland, he awoke with the unshakeable conviction New Zealand had been invaded.
Only after he’d sabotaged a large number of cannon (leading to mayhem when the garrison attempted to fire 12 guns to sound midday) and nailed shut the door of the barracks was he finally arrested and subdued.
Of course, it’s difficult for officers to discipline a Field Marshal and so O’Crackerley was placed under house arrest. The Colonel in charge of the operation managed to convince O’Crackerley he was needed for secret war work which consisted of growing palm trees. He explained to the Field Marshal that the only way to win a war against China would be to carry out guerrilla operations and in order to do this New Zealand would first have to be turned into a jungle.
The plan made sense to O’Crackerley’s withered faculties and he set about developing a strain of palm which would grow almost anywhere under any climatic conditions.
Of course, when the British High Command was informed of O’Crackerley’s madness, they decided he was simply too dangerous to be allowed to wander freely through the Empire – and yet they couldn’t publicly admit such a high-ranking officer was feeble-minded.
Instead, they decided to post him safely out of harm’s way on the Isle of Man, where they told him he could carry out the necessary botanical research to complete his project.
For a number of years, he lived in Kirk Michael in a small compound closely guarded by British military intelligence. He was a modest man with few vices save Navy rum, and lived quietly just outside the village.
But the day finally came when he realised he’d created a variety of palm tree which could happily live in the Gobi Desert as easily as it could thrive in Alaska. He hurriedly fired off telegram after telegram asking for permission for the tree to be widely planted across the Empire in case of Chinese attack.
Of course, the government wanted nothing to do with a plan that would turn vast swathes of the globe into impenetrable jungle on the whim of a madman, and so they repeatedly refused permission – telling O’Crackerley that to begin planting would be to alert the Chinese.
Working in secret even from those guarding him, O’Crackerley came up with a plan. As a keen walker, he would often hike up the side of Snaefell carrying a soldier’s full combat kit (“Have to keep fit, man, just in case the yeller devils get here,” he wrote in his diary). Slowly but surely, he put his scheme into action.
On the summit of Snaefell, he managed to construct a large cannon facing vertically upwards. This he gradually packed with gunpowder he’d salvage from the ammunition he carried for his officer’s pistol. Over the course of three months in 1905, he slowly built up a charge great enough for his purposes.
On February 4 he was ready. He carried a large bag of seeds in his pack, announced he was going for a walk, and began striding up Snaefell. When he reached the summit, he took off the cannon’s protective cover and packed the muzzle with the bag of seeds. Lighting the fuse, he stood back, turned around, placed his hands over his ears and waited.
The resultant blast when the cannon exploded could be seen from the Lake District, and caused many residents of Ramsey and Douglas to believe the day of judgement had finally arrived. When a party of militia were sent to investigate, they found nothing more O’Crackerley except his hat.
But he’d accomplished the impossible – the seeds were fired into the air and over the next few days began to drift down and take root all over the Isle of Man.
To this day, you can still see the results of O’Crackerley’s demented botanical genius right across the Island, including at Ronaldsway Airport where a line of Manx palm trees was planted in 1972 to commemorate his gift to the Manx people.Labels: Douglas, isle of man, isle of man manx, palm trees, ramsey, Thrumplock O'Crackerley
Written at 15:37 by
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| .: Seagulls find Juan Christian |
THE DOWNFALL OF JUAN 'THE BUTCHER' CHRISTIAN
 Juan Christian decided to take advantage of the terrain and headed for Snaefell, relying on the mountainous terrain to hide his tracks.
As he sailed his wagon upwards, he came upon a Methodist lay preacher, Mitsimara Quayle, and a band of followers who were singing hymns.
Christian fell upon them and put them to the sword – killing every man, woman and child. He took food and water from their cart and continued up the Mountain.
But in the meantime the people of Ramsey had turned to an unlikely source for help. Living in a small shack near the harbour at the time was an old Portuguese seaman Phillipo da Gascoine da Influenza (pictured above).
He’d lived at sea all his life, refusing to come ashore until it was time for him to retire from the Manx whaling fleet. Upon his retirement, he built the shack and devoted his life to training seagulls. The Manx herring gulls had long been known for their intelligence and aggression and so Phillipo da Gascoine da Influenza was also known as “Nine-fingers”.
As the crowd gathered before his door, he beheld their anger and misery and burning desire for vengeance, and he agreed to help them rather than be lynched himself.
He drew one of his seagull pals to him and threw it into the air with a flourish. The bird set off North and the crowd settled in to wait. After just half an hour, the seagull flew back and squawked at the old man. He informed the waiting throng that Juan Christian could be found on Skye Hill.
The crowd cheered and left en masse to track down the murderer.Labels: Fletcher Christian, herring gulls, isle of man, isle of man manx, Juan Christian, Phillipo da Gascoine da Influenza, ramsey, seagulls, Skye Hill
Written at 17:27 by
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| .: Juan Christian, Manx terror |
BUTCHER'S NIGHT - AUGUST 4, 1790
 Juan Christian escaped from the clutches of the angry mob in Ramsey and took his sailwagon to Bride, where for a few days he laid low and formed a plan to destroy the Isle of Man.
Feeling hated and rejected by the Manx community, he resolved to extract his revenge on the people of Ramsey. He disguised himself as a travelling purveyor of marrows from Cathay and bought up yards and yards of cotton from local merchants.
He rented a storehouse in Andreas and in the middle of the night took the sailwagon inside. For three days and nights, all that could be heard was hammering, sawing and cursing. But on the early evening of the fourth day the doors were flung open and out he sailed.
He’d converted his sailwagon into a pirate whip which he named Butcher’s Revenge, made black sails and a jolly roger flag and clothed himself entirely in black. Being of a mechanical bent, he’d made a number of ingenious modifications to the Butcher’s Revenge allowing him to sail her single-handed.
Tipping his hat at several ladies working in the fields, he set about his nefarious plan.
First was a daring attack on Ramsey harbour where an English sloop was being repaired after a battle with smugglers in the Irish Sea. The crew of the Mary Louise had no idea Christian had climbed aboard until he’d simply walked away with two small cannons and enough ammunition to level the town.
He fixed the guns to the side of the Butcher’s Revenge – and they saw their first action shortly thereafter when Christian delivered a broadside that managed to hole the Mary Louise. She sank within seconds.
Cackling maniacally, he then cruised through the streets of the town firing at random into buildings. In a single night of fiery vengeance, he managed to utterly destroy the town centre.
Consumed by the flames which devastated the town hall was the Isle of Man’s Hat of Justice, an unremarkable looking piece of headwear which was worn by judges when they presided over trials. Without a hat, ancient Viking law forbad any man to be tried for any crime.
When the fires were out, the dead counted and a mourning breakfast of kippers and potatoes had been served at Mooragh Park, the townspeople gathered and demanded Christian be hunted down and executed.
Invoking the Norse custom of holding a Thing in times of crisis, the mob assembled in Parliament Square. As required by law, each man or woman who wished to lay a grievance before the town council wore a hat and shouted a verbal vote of “guilty” or “not guilty” when each charge against Christian was read.
In total, they found him guilty of 6,903 charges of arson, 18,944 counts of criminal damage, 121 counts of discharging an artillery-piece in public, 43 counts of dangerous waggoneering, 2 counts of culpable murder of white dogs (an offence since Celts settled the Island), and 43 charges of murder.
Further charges of using abusive language, sabotaging a vessel of Her Majesty and road piracy were thought too serious to be heard by a mostly-illiterate multitude and were ordered to lay on file.
Each year on 4th August, Ramsey still remembers the so-called “Butcher’s Night” by setting off fireworks, performing sundry pranks on sailors and firing a small white dog from a ceremonial cannon from the end of Queen’s Pier.
But in 1790, thoughts of celebration were far from the minds of the masses gathered to see justice done. Taking to carts, horses or whatever form of transport they could, they set out on the trail of the only land-pirate ever to have terrorised the British Isles.Labels: Fletcher Christian, isle of man, isle of man manx, Juan Christian, Norse, Parliament Square, Queen's Pier, ramsey, Thing
Written at 15:50 by
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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
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| .: Freedom to Flourish |
THE FREEDOM TO FLOURISH STORY
 In 894AD, the Isle of Man was ruled by an Atlantean race known as the Jecerits (the c is a sibilant, so the word is pronounced “jesserits” rather than “jeckerits”).
The first king’s name was Jecer, hence the name of the tribe, and he landed in Peel in 893AD and spent a year travelling around with his army conquering the Island.
When he was installed as King of Mann, he stopped travelling and declared the day a national holiday – The Day When Jecer Stopped Travelling, or “quocunque jeceris stabit” as it later became known.
When the Vikings invaded around a century later, they misunderstood the phrase. The Battle of Skye Hill, which saw the Norse King Gorry establish himself as monarch, took place on the holiday (which partly explains the easy victory he won).
He thought the phrase was a war cry and adopted it for his own men. Until very recently, the motto appeared on the Manx coat of arms and was mistaken for Latin by most scholars.
In 1982, the Isle of Man government decided the time was ripe for a new motto for the Island, and embarked on an ambitious project to come up with something snappier and in English.
They established a top-secret colony of marketing executives on Chicken Rock, south of the Calf of Man and kept tourists clear of the place by declaring it to have been infected with anthrax.
Little is known of the project, but what is public record is that one of the copywriters, Tom Quayle, washed up on Douglas beach in 2007 on a raft he’d built himself from seagull bones and human sinew.
In his hand, he bore a slip of paper, upon which was written three words in his own blood: Freedom to Flourish.
He was whisked away and spent several weeks being debriefed by Manx Intelligence, before a report was prepared for Tynwald of the project’s outcome.
In response, Tynwald sought the assistance of the UK government, who ordered the RAF to carpet bomb Chicken Rock. No trace of any of the other marketing people has ever been found, although a diary which is alleged to have been kept by one of them was reported to have been found in a bottle found at Fleshwick Bay.
Little else is known about the fate of the advertising executives, copywriters, and viral marketing specialists, but in their honour the Isle of Man adopted “Freedom to Flourish” as its new brand motto.Labels: calf of man, chicken rock, freedom to flourish, isle of man manx, quocunque jeceris stabit, tynwald
Written at 11:20 by
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