Time Out

The Isle of Man is a sort of Brigadoon. Awash in the blue of the Irish Sea, its 221 square miles lie roughly equidistant from Scotland, Northern Ireland and England. Manxmen give up the old ways only grudgingly. They are an independent lot, as evidenced by their tenacity to Manx Gaelic as a second official language. Only a handful of inhabitants still speak the tongue, but the laws passed by the Tynwald (the world’s oldest parliament) are declaimed annually, on July 5, in a bilingual ceremony on Tynwald Hill.

The Manx reluctance to be stampeded into change is apparent in many areas of daily life, including transportation. The Isle of Man Steam Packet Company, for instance, has been operating passenger steamships under its flag since 1830. Today a fleet of eight ships connects a variety of ports with Douglas, the capital. Each looks like a miniature Cunarder, not only because of her fine, traditional lines, but also because of the near-identity of the companies’ funnel markings—black-banded red in both cases. When questioned on the coincidence, Packet Company officials merely point out that their claim to the colors is older.

KZ

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Karl R. Zimmermann

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The Isle of Man is a sort of Brigadoon. Awash in the blue of the Irish Sea, its 221 square miles lie roughly equidistant from Scotland, Northern Ireland and England. Manxmen give up the old ways only grudgingly. They are an independent lot, as evidenced by their tenacity to Manx Gaelic as a second official language. Only a handful of inhabitants still speak the tongue, but the laws passed by the Tynwald (the world’s oldest parliament) are declaimed annually, on July 5, in a bilingual ceremony on Tynwald Hill.

The Manx reluctance to be stampeded into change is apparent in many areas of daily life, including transportation. The Isle of Man Steam Packet Company, for instance, has been operating passenger steamships under its flag since 1830. Today a fleet of eight ships connects a variety of ports with Douglas, the capital. Each looks like a miniature Cunarder, not only because of her fine, traditional lines, but also because of the near-identity of the companies’ funnel markings—black-banded red in both cases. When questioned on the coincidence, Packet Company officials merely point out that their claim to the colors is older.