It’s known for its Viking-era parliament, Victorian seafront promenades, death-defying motorcycle races and cats without tails. Still, the Isle of Man exudes not schizophrenia but a gentle cohesion as comforting as the tea and cakes served everywhere on the self-governing British island.
A dot of 220 square miles in the Irish Sea between England and Ireland, the Isle of Man has hosted Iron Age Celts, Norsemen, Cistercian monks, Scottish warriors and English nobles. The Manx language has its roots in the early Irish of 5th-century Christian missionaries.
Man boasts the world’s oldest continuously functioning legislature, established in 979. The three chambers of the Tynwald—Viking for “assembly field”—meet regularly, and the field itself is the site of yearly public meetings during which new legislation is read to the public (in English and Manx Gaelic) and any of its 85,000 residents can bring grievances directly to their political leaders.
That independence is important to Manx natives, who seem none too keen to be associated with England. The island has been under Scottish or English control since the end of Norse rule in 1265. But although British monarchs have carried the title Lord or Lady of Mann since the early 16th century, the island isn’t part of the United Kingdom and elects its own president. Proud of being the first nation to give women the vote (1881), it continues to stress its differences from Britain. (For their part, mainland Brits tend to look askance at the island they know mainly as a tax haven. Man adopted a special tax regime in 1960.)
On my first visit to Man, I had the sensation of stepping into the 1950s musical “Brigadoon,” about a mysterious village that appears through the mist for a day every 100 years.
Glens with fern forests and dark streams feel like discoveries—there’s fairy (or faerie) lore here and I was even given a handful of tiny tin fairies by an old man. Higher up, rugged terrain covered in heather gives a purple hue to the mountain sides. Rolling hillsides divvied up by hedges or stone walls make a green counterpane dotted with sheep and the occasional farmhouse. All encircled by rocky coastlines.
Even in the cities, there’s a feeling of stepping back in time, in the quarters of fishermen’s row houses or on the grand Victorian boulevards with names like Queen’s Promenade, where it’s easy to imagine the island’s heyday with its hordes of 1880s holiday makers.
Today, the biggest public gatherings are for motorcycle races, the TT (Tourist Trophy) and the Manx Grand Prix. Since they began in 1907, the island has been a Mecca for bikers and racing enthusiasts. Coursing through villages and mountain hairpins is famously dangerous (two racers died last month) but the island is in festival mode, with parish churches selling tea and cakes to race watchers.
Perhaps the most famous residents are the most elusive. Manx cats are an indigenous breed known for a mutation creating a tailless feline—a kayt Manninagh.
Two-legged Manx residents seem happy to stay just as hard to find. A bill before the House of Keys (the island’s House of Commons, or parliamentary lower chamber) would consider “application by the Isle of Man for full and independent entry into the European Union.” It’s has been sitting unattended to on the lawmakers’ debating table for years.
Elizabeth Wise is a former correspondent for The Associated Press and The Economist Group.