Germanus, for the honour of the Manks nation, was sixty-nine years ancienter than Bangor, in Wales, which was the first bishopric that we read of among the Britons, and one hundred and fourteen years before Austin the monk. He introduced the liturgy of the Lateran, and so absolutely settled the business of religion, that the Island never afterwards relapsed. He died before St. Patrick, who sent two bishops to supply his place, Conindrius and Romulus, of whom we have little memorable; but that one or both of them survived St. Patrick five years is very probable, for then it was 494.

Another St. Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre (died 448), who was better known within Roman church e.g. Bull of Gregory IX was written on July 30th which was the eve of the feast day of this saint - hence alternative spelling of Germain. This Germanus became associated with Britain when sent, at the request of the British, to refute the Pelagian heretics. On a second visit, again to refute Pelagianism, this time successfully, he directed British forces in battle against Picts and Saxons. Feast widely celebrated in England. As the various references to German are chronologically impossible to reconcile with the better known Germanus there has been several, highly conjectural, lives of which one was that he was born in Brittany c.410, went to Ireland to stay with St Patrick, came to Wales c.440, returned to Ireland and became Bishop of Man c.466. [The Oxford Dictionary of Saints 1978]

St. German Cathedral

Built between 1879 and 1884 at the instigation of Bishop Rowley Hill to replace the old St. Peters in the Market place, Peel, which served as parish church for German (and until 1714 Patrick). Became the Cathedral church in 1980 after several attempts to restore the ruined cathedral on St. Patrick's isle came to naught. Patrick and German shared St Peter's in Peel. The church was rebuilt 1881 as the old church was in a very bad state of repair - the site of the old church becoming part of the graveyard. The site itself must have been of some importance as it is mentioned in 1505.

In the Life of St. Patrick, composed by Jocelyn, a monk of Furness, in the twelfth century, some particulars are given regarding the preaching of our Apostle in the Isle of Man. When Jocelyn wrote, the closest relations existed between Furness Abbey and its offshoot the celebrated Cistercian Monastery of Rushin in the Isle of Man, and hence his testimony must be regarded as presenting to us the local records and traditions of the island. He tells us that " very many places in Britain still retain the memory of St. Patrick's miracles. But he, having summoned around him many well-instructed and religious men, brought them to Ireland, and of these, thirty were subsequently raised to the Episcopal dignity. Sailing towards Ireland he visited the islands of the sea, and Eubonia, i.e., the Isle of Man, then subject to Britain, was converted to Christ by his preaching and miracles. St. Patrick chose one of his disciples, by name German, a wise and holy man, whom he promoted to the Episcopate, and constituted ruler of the new Church, and the Episcopal See was fixed in the promontory, which to the present day is called Inis-Patrick, because the saint remained there for some time." But as to how long St. German ruled the infant Church of Man we have no means of determining. No one of that name appears in the Irish Calendars in connection with the Isle of Man, and Jocelyn alone, among the historians of St. Patrick's life, mentions such a saint as his disciple. However, among the contemporaries and disciples of St. Patrick, we meet with a Saint Coemanus, the son of a Welsh prince named Brecan. This prince was by birth connected with the Cruithnean Ulster chieftains, and all his numerous family are famed for their sanctity and reckoned among the saints in the Irish and British records. His territory lay along the coast of Wales, and his son, Coemanus, is precisely the person whom we should suppose St. Patrick would select to preach the doctrines of the Faith in Man. The British form of his name is Coemaun, and the transition in the course of centuries to the more classic Latin name Germanus, will not seem strange or novel to those acquainted with Irish names as found transformed in mediaeval Latin records. There is, however, something more to be said about him. His name is commonly presented to us in Irish records, with the usual Celtic prefixes, under the form of Mochamog. Thus Colgan, when speaking of this saint, styles him " Coemanus cognomenta Peregrinus qui et Mochomocus," and adds that his feast was kept on the 3rd of November. On that day, in the Martyrology of Donegal, we find precisely registered the name of " Mochamhog the Pilgrim." Thus, the Latin traditions which link together the names of Patrick and Germanus are found to harmonise with the bardic compositions which quote Patrick and Mochamhog.

Of Maughold, the third Bishop of Man, there is a curious legend preserved in the Manx traditions which also finds a place in the records of Ireland. In the lifetime of St. Patrick, St. Brigid is said to have visited the Holy Island, and with seven virgins founded a convent in the place now known as the Vale of Douglas. In the changes of time, when the glories of the Norman church gave place to the primitive constitution of the Celtic Fathers, the sons of St. Bernard, from the mother-house of Furnes-Abbey, became the guardians of the Faith in Man. The few traces that still remain of the ancient churches of the Isle of Man present a remarkable similarity with the early churches of this country. The old inscribed crosses are, however, the most remarkable monuments that have come down to us from the Celto-Scandinavian period of the Manx Church. In the Island of Peel (now connected with the mainland), within the grass-grown area encircled by the fortifications of the historic castle, stands the oratory, dignified with the title of St. Patrick's Cathedral.

As regards the monastery of St. Leoc, it is conjectured that its patron saint was St. Lupus, who accompanied St. German of Auxerre in his mission into Britain. The Abbey Rushin seems at a later period to have occupied the site of the more ancient monastery. This abbey was enriched, indeed, with many lands by Olave, in the yeare 1134, but it was founded at an earlier date. King Alfred, who surely must have known the extent of Edwin's conquest, in his translation of Bede, expressly substitutes in this text the name of Anglesey instead of the generic phrase " Menavian islands." From the Book of Rights it would appear that as late as the tenth century Man was held to be tributary to Ireland.

The "Chronicle of Man " records a curious fact in the yeare 1095. On the death of Lachman, King of Man and the Isles, all the Manx nobility sent an embassy to Muircheartach O'Brien, King of Ireland, asking him to send one of his royal race to rule the kingdom during the minority of Prince Olaf. The Irish monarch complied with their request, and sent to them his kinsman, Donald MacTeigue, a man of moderation and prudence, to discharge the onerous duties of that high office. Three years later, viz., in 1098, King Magnus of Norway made a triumphal visitation of the Orcades and other islands subject to the Norwegian sway; and from Man sent an insulting message to the Irish monarch, Muircheartach, commanding him to wear a pair of slippers on his shoulders on the following Christmas feast, in token of his being tributary to Magnus. The Irish nobles were indignant at the insult thus offered to their soverein; but Muircheartach humbly complied with the command of Magnus, adding that sooner than imperil the peace of his people, he was ready to carry on his shoulders the slippers of Magnus till the Day of Judgment. Soon after Magnus perished at the hands of the Irish chieftains, together with all the troops which he had brought with him to the island.

In Edward the Third's time the sovereignty passed to the English King, who bestowed it on the Earl of Salisbury. This nobleman in time sold the island and his kingship to the Earl of Wiltshire. This sovereign, being found guilty of high treason, the crown was bestowed on Percy, Earl of Northumberland. But he, too, having walked in treasonable ways, his royalty was transferred to the Stanleys.

Early in the 15th century, 1406, we find Sir John Stanley, who had been Lord Deputy of Ireland, and is ancestor to the Earls of Derby, had a commission from Henry IV., in conjunction with Roger Leke, to seize on the city of York and its liberties, and also upon the Isle of Man, on the forfeiture of Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland; and having taken possession of the Isle of Man, he obtained a grant in fee of the said isle, castle and pile, anciently called Holm town, and all the isles adjacent, as also all the regalities, franchises, etc., to be holden of the said king, his heirs and successors, by homage, and the service of two falcons, payable on the day of their coronation.

Sometimes crossing over in a fishing craft, to Killough, County Down from Castletown, the chief remaining monument of Father Gahan's labours is the chapel of Castletown, opened in 1826. From Ireland again came the funds which enabled him to purchase a large hall — called St. George's — at the corner of Athol-street, leading down Victoria-street. The spiritual administration of the Isle of Man was formally provided for by the Vicar Apostolic of the Northern Province of England. About 1846, many sons and daughters of Ireland began to cross over and make the island their home.

Once in a way a cart as rough as the roads might give him a lift for a mile or two, but there were no snug railways, or even engineer planned highways in those days in the land of the three legs. So far, the Island had got its priests from Ireland. About 1837, it was attached to what is now the English Diocese of Liverpool, and Father McGrath was the first priest to come from England. He was a most worthy priest, and hard-working in his own peculiar apostolic fashion. He served the whole Island for about twenty-one years, and his great piety and charity, together with his charming simplicity, are talked of to this day. Here ends the ancient history and the dark ages of the Catholic Church of the Little Man Island. Possibly they did not stop long enough to do anything for Ramsey worthy of special record.