Blogs

An Sionnach Fionn website has a report on a new documentary by Channel Four on the murder of fourteen civilians including mother of eight children Joan Connolly in August 1971.

There is a trailer for the film to be screened shortly at this link:

https://ansionnachfionn.com/2018/08/08/the-ballymurphy-precedent-a-new-d...

Bernard Moffatt

Despite unwarranted worries about the weather, crowds flocked to this year's Royal Manx Agricultural Show, which attracted lots of visitors through the gates at Knockaloe Farm in Patrick on both days, to the delight of organisers.

The Neolithic chambered tombs of Cairnholy stand in Dumfries and Galloway (Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Phrìs is Gall-Ghaidhealaibh) in south-west Scotland. There are two chambered tomb sites that are within just over 164 yards (150m) of each other. They are in a beautiful location on a gentle sloping hill above Kirkdale Glen looking towards Wigtown Bay. Both are very impressive and were built to honour the ancestors of the Neolithic farming communities that lived in this area between 6000 and 4000 years ago.

With David Ashford and Alf Cannan MHKs busy dismantling the Manx health service I’ve been busy in my quest to find traditional charms and cures for all manner of maladies. I was fortunate to discover WW Gill’s book ‘Customs and Traditions, Cures and Charms, Fairies and Phantoms’.

Must try to track down a print edition - anyway the online version is at this link

http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/~stephen/chiollaghbooksfirstseries/cb04.pdf

I’ve just read a selection of written questions posed for written answer in this new device supposed to convince us that whilst Tynwald is actually on holiday and enjoying the fringe benefits to their £50K plus they are ‘pretend’ working. They were helpfully posted as always by Crown Dependency News:

https://www.facebook.com/crowndependencypoliticalnews/photos/a.790761064...

Oh dear government do seem to be getting themselves in to a pickle. I mean there’s one thing giving someone like Trevor Cowin (or me) the bums rush over a freedom of information request. However now they seem to have provoked the ire of the Islands only newspaper group:

http://www.iomtoday.co.im/article.cfm?id=42284&headline=Our%20Steam%20Pa...

Few of the distinctive headstones designed by Manx designer Archibald Knox will be found outside of the Isle of Man, the best known being that created for Arthur Lasenby Liberty for whom the gifted Manx designer worked for several years. But a lesser known memorial, behind which lies a tragic story, resides in a quiet, Lancashire churchyard in its centenary year.

One of the Isle of Man’s ‘HNWIs’ comes in for a bit of stick on the Scottish Independence site ‘Wings Over Scotland’. Michelle Mone of course was a prominent figure in the NO vote camp at the time of the referendum and misses no opportunity to slam the Scottish nationalist camp. It seems the feeling is reciprocated:

https://wingsoverscotland.com/black-snake-mone/#more-105365

As I predicted yesterday ‘the W C Fields of Manx Politics’ turned up on cue in ‘the portal’ to tell us black is white over inflation.

https://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-news/drop-in-inflation-good-n...

Even in the UK inflation is on the increase while here via a variety of devices and mechanisms that would even have the late Tommy Cooper gazing in awe its going down.

Close to the village of St John's (Manx: Balley Keeill Eoin) in the Isle of Man (Mannin) is the Ballaharra Quarry. It is owned by the Corlett family, who run a genuine Manx company with ownership and control remaining within the same family since it was established in 1947. They bought the site at Ballaharra after discovering working deposits of sand suitable for building materials. Production began in 1965.