S. Patrick in his second visit to Ireland, was shipwrecked on the Isle of Man, and spent three years in evangelizillg that country. On his departure for Ireland, he left S. Germanus bishop, and on his decease, consecrated successively Conindrius and Romulus, who have left no trace of their names in any of the island churches. To the latter succeeded S. Maughold; to him S. Lomanus; to him S. Conaghan, and to him S. Marowne. During the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries, the succession is unknown. How these Bishops were consecrated does not distinctly appear; but they seem to have had their succession either from Ireland or from Wales: till about 1100 they became suffragans of York, and about 1180 to Drontheim. In the mean time the Bishopric of Sodor was instituted by Pope Gregory IV. in A.D. 838; and embraced the Hebrides. On the conquest of these islands and Man by Magnus of Norway, the two sees were united.

 

Town Parishes [Placenames]
CASTLETOWN Founded 1250 as church or chapel of St Mary. Is part of Malew parish. To the east of the guard room is the Cathedral church of S. Germanus, founded by Bishop Simon in 1240. The castle of Castle Town, at present the seate of government, is said to have been built by Gødred, King of Man, in 947. The ruins of the Abbey of S. Mary, Rushin, the last dissolved in England, lie on the side of the pretty little Silverburn, not three miles from Castle Town. The abbey was founded in 1134, by the good King Olave, who had been brought up at the court of Henry I., and had married his daughter. It was a cell to the Cistercian Abbey of Furness. The church was not consecrated till 1257, by Richard, Bishop of Sodor and Man, in the reign of Magnus III., the last king of the Norwegian line. In the abbey garden is a tombstone, which has given rise to the most absurd conjectures on the part of Manx antiquaries. It is a Dosd'ane, carved with a cross, and a sword by its side, evidently a knight's tomb.
DOUGLAS Part of Braddan parish on a quiet avenue of ash trees were grounds of the nunnery founded by S. Bridget when she came to receive the veil from S. Maughold. The church is under the invocation of S. Brandon, who lived in the Isle of Arran about 1080, and was afterwards Bishop of Man. He is not utterly unknown as the patron of some English churches, and was greatly honoured in the Hebrides. It was rebuilt in 1773.
PEEL under Patrick and under German for Old and New Cathedrals
RAMSEY had become a maritime community from around 1600 - the parish church of Kirk Maughold was at a considerable and awkward journey and thus one of the disused keeills was restored to act as Chapel of Ease. Ballure Chapel, St. Pauls, St. Olaves. Kirk Lonnan is under the invocation of S. Lomanus, who was son to Tygrida, sister of S. Patrick and succeeded S. Maughold in the bishopric. There is a fine view hence of the Mull of Galloway, and of the Cumberland mountains.

KIRK BRIDE, the most northern parish in the Island. The point of Ayre is a little way beyond it. It is an extensive bell of sand, at the end of which the circuits meeting, form a large vortex. In 1348, Bishop William Russell refused obedience to the see of Drontheim, having been consecrated by Clement VI.; and the island was annexed to the Province of Canterbury. In 1377, the sees of Sodor and Man were separated,-the Bishops of the former taking their title from " the Isles," those of the latter naming the little island in which the cathedral stands, Sodor, to keep up the old name. The first of these was Bishop Waldby, afterwards translated to Dublin; whose brass is to be seen in Westminster Abbey. In 1542, Man was re-annexed to the Province of York. Kirk Arbory, from S. Cairbre, a disciple of S. Patrick, modern church, but it has its ancient font, like that of Kirk Bride, octagonal and small, disgracefully exposed on the north wall of the churchyard. Another mile to Kirk Malew, the parish church of Castle Town, new, though on the old Manx plan, and fitted up with modern attempts at stained glass. The church is under the invocation of S. Lupita, sister of S. Patrick.

 

Langness is a peninsula which protrudes from the south eastern extremity of the Isle of Man. Signifying a cape or extended promontory, Langness literally means "long promontory" in Old Norse. At one time an island, Langness was eventually joined to the mainland by the movement and deposition of material along Castletown Bay to form a tombolo. The small community of Derbyhaven is situated on this strip of land and lies close to Castletown. St. Michael's Isle (Fort Island) is connected at the northern end of the peninsula by a narrow causeway. Derbyhaven lies in the Parish of Malew Sheadings and Parishes. The island serves as a bird sanctuary.

But toponomy has now come to be recognised as a branch of archæology requiring an especial knowledge of the languages spoken by the various races who have inhabited a country, and some states — notably the Scandinavian countries — have considered the matter of sufficient importance to have the study placed upon a national basis by subsidizing literature printed upon the subject. Towards the beginning of the 15th century English influence came into play, and a few Gaelic and Norse names were displaced by English ones. The fusion of Gael and Norsemen eventually had its influence on the language of the latter people, for they spoke a hybrid dialect interspersed with words of Gaelic extraction, a dialect which had absorbed the Gaelic idiom to a more or less extent, whilst many of their personal names were also Gaelic. Such were the Gall-Gaels of Man and the Isles of the 11th and 12th centuries. Towards the beginning of the 15th century English influence came into play, and a few Gaelic and Norse names were displaced by English ones; but this did not happen to any great extent, and the greater part of our place-names are still Gaelic and Norse. Such names as Silverburn, Santonburn, Red Gap, Derby Haven, Milntown, etc., belong to the English period. Norwegians who settled in the north-west of England, came from the Isle of Man, Ireland, and the Hebrides, and had been influenced to some extent in regard to their language by Gaels, thus they had adopted the Gaelic way of forming compounds. If the Gaels borrowed generic terms from the Scandinavians, the latter repaid the compliment, although not nearly to the same extent, as their borrowings mainly consisted of personal names. Besides the words of Norse extraction given above. the vocabulary of the Manx language has been enriched in no small degree with words bequeathed to it by the sea-faring men from the Northlands, not to mention the many words, such as byr, ‘a farm,’ fjall, ‘a hill,’ dali-, ‘a gle~tc., which occur as the component parts of Norse place-names. When the Norsemen settled in Man, the Gaelic language was replaced by a Scandinavian dialect; the runic monuments conclusively prove this. The Scandinavian place-names are still less understood because the language they represent has not been spoken in Man for many centuries. There are many place-names, however, which defy analysis, even if one is in possession of the oldest orthography available. In such cases we can only conclude that there were still older written forms which have been lost, or, that the language represented in these names belonged to a people which inhabited Man before the dawn of history. There are many suffixes in the Manx language by which new words may be formed from one root, but only a few of the more important which occur in place-names will be here mentioned. Perhaps one of the most common of these is an or ane, which although originally having a diminutive signification, now adds a collective meaning to the stem. Loghan, from logh, ‘a lake,’ is usually applied to ‘a pool’; carnane, from carn,’a cairn,’ often means ‘a hill’; creggan, from creg, ‘a rock,’ is applied to a piece of ‘craggy ground’; laggan, from lag, ‘a hollow,’ does not differ materially in meaning from the stem; and strooan, from stroo, has now the meaning of ‘a stream,’ whilst the stem has now acquired the meaning of ‘a current.’