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| .: Manx tartan |
 The Manx tartan was invented in 1890s after a long-running battle between the ladies of the Island about who could dress the most stylishly on Tynwald Day.
At the annual ceremony in St John’s, it became fashionable for women to wear larger and larger hats to outdo each other. The picture was taken in 1885 and shows Mrs Athenboggle Quirk, who was married to Ayre MHK Fuartangle Quirk.
But the practice had to be regulated after 1887 after a fresh breeze sprang out of the West halfway through the procession of the worthies to Tynwald Hill from the Royal Chapel.
The scale of the hats was out of all proportion to the ability of the human neck to resist, and the wind took hold of the enormous pieces of millinery.
The result was tragedy – eight ladies dead from snapped necks caused by the wind and weight of their hats, and another fifteen seriously injured.
In the aftermath, the more sensible men of Tynwald passed a resolution strictly controlling the size and weight of hats that may be worn on the Island’s national day.
The laws survive to this day, making it illegal for a lady to wear a hat ‘whose highest point doth stand more than three handspans above the highest point of the eyelash’.
In response, the Laxey Woolen Mills created the Manx tartan, a mixture of green, blue, gold, purple and white, and sold a variety of hat designs in the fabric.
Officially, the colours were chosen to fit the following rhyme:
Blue for the Sea,
Green for the hills,
Gold for the gorse,
Purple for the heather,
White for the cottages.
But some Victorian wag quickly adapted the poem and has this alternative version published in the Mona’s Gazette letters pages:
Blue for the mood,
Green for the seasickness,
Gold for the banks,
Purple for the writing of TE Brown
White for the Island bled dry by the English
Although the original poem did survive to the present day, the latter is more widely used in the Isle of Man to describe the tartan pattern.Labels: isle of man, manx, tartan, tynwald
Written at 16:12 by
G
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| .: Bingo, Post Office Hero |
 The Isle of Man introduced an anti-spitting law in 1941 as the Second World War reached its height. The measure was brought in after comments from High Bailiff William ‘Draw And Quarter” Cain who noted some off-duty soldiers from England who were stationed in Onchan were spitting at the Manx flag.
They were arrested and questioned, and explained they thought the Manx triskele was in fact a Nazi swastika. Police were forced to release them without charge, but Cain was so angry he had them rearrested and charged with unruly behaviour, for which each of the six men received 12 lashes.
After the incident, Tynwald decided to enact a law which outlawed spitting in any shape or form for any purpose.
This seemed to work well, with street thugs and rowdies being rounded up and flogged over the space of about six months. But there was an unfortunate snag which came back to haunt Cain.
In August 1941, he wrote an angry letter to a local newspaper accusing it of treason after it printed a controversial reader’s letter entitled “Should we really fight on the French side?”
The editor of the Mona’s Gazette was Dru Quiggin – a hard-nosed journalist who’d hacked his way into the top job by dint of his stare, which could boil a kettle at a hundred yards.
He was less than amused by Cain’s missive and accused him of spitting. When police investigated, Quiggin pointed out that Cain’s letter had been sealed with saliva and a stamp had been attached to it the same way. This had then been sent to the newspaper – which technically constituted spitting.
Cain admitted his crime and was fined 18 shillings, escaping the birch only because he’d pleaded guilty as early as possible. He was allowed to keep his job, and the episode was the first in what was to become a long-running feud between the paper and the judge.
But the consequences of the case were far-reaching. The Isle of Man Post Office realised every letter it carried could make it liable for an allegation of spitting, and it had to move fast to avoid utter ruin.
It told all customers it would no longer deliver letters which had been sealed by senders, and employed a dog whose sole duty was to lick stamps and envelopes for sealing. Bingo, as he was called, was based at Post Office headquarters in Douglas and spent eight years sat at the side of the counter licking stamps for customers. As the law didn’t apply to animal saliva, no charges could be brought against anybody.
Eventually, Tynwald realised its mistake and – sensing a new era was upon the world – changed the law with effect from January 1, 1950.
Bingo (pictured) retired and spent two happy years living on a farm in St John’s before passing away in 1952.Labels: bingo, mona's gazette, post office, swastika, triskele, tynwald, William Cain, WWII
Written at 12:51 by
G
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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
G
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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
G
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As usual another superb post.Wonder if the wearing of tartan would be banne in fightlife"
Luiz"
thiet ke nha
nha xinh
duong vat gia da nang"