A Stop By The Phone Booth

About a 15 minute drive from here, on a south facing slope leading down to what is called, "The Sound", is a tiny village. It is made up of a few thatched cottages, dating back to the 1700's. Some are still inhabited. But most have been taken over by the Manx Historical Society.
It is called Cregneash. You can see it if you choose to watch a film called, " Waking Ned Devine." They used Cregneash as a stand-in for the Irish village in the story.

We visited  by taking the bus out to the phone booth. That is what we were told in the bus schedule. "Get off at the phone booth." We did and from there it is a short walk down to the village. As you stand at the edge of town, the small stone crofts, the smell of peat smoke, the sheep in the fields, the blue sea sparkling below, it all adds up to perfection.

There was a lady working in the tiny room on one end of the village tea room who told us the story of some of the past residents of Cregneash. We then wander around looking inside the cottages that are still furnished with the same pieces that were there when the residents farmed and fished to survive.


We were honoured to be introduced to the Manx cat, Bonny.

Harry Kelly was a man who lived alone and worked every day on the land or on the sea.

Mr Kelly would go to market and buy what he needed and with any money left over he bought decorative objects.

If, at a later date, money was scarce, he would take these objects back to market and sell them. They were his bank account. He was one of the last Manx speakers on the island and the recordings made of him speaking and singing are sparking the revival of the Manx language today.
The largest house in the hamlet, Church Farm, had more "posh" things on their dresser. They also could afford to plaster the inside walls and paint them, with a mixture of white lead paint and animal blood. The combination was believed to keep bugs and creepy crawlies away.

There was a poet, Ned Beg, who never spoke, but wrote the must beautiful verse. Well, look at his view.

It must have been a hard life clawing a subsistence from the soil in summer and the sea in the winter. The roofs were covered with rolled strips of peat and thatch made from straw.

The floors were made of puddle clay. This was a mud that became smooth as it was walked on but never dried out. Therefore it didn't turn to dust.

People worked with each other to survive and when jobs needed to be done the whole village turned out to help. They decided that they wanted a church

and so with all hands on deck they built a church that still stands for 150 pounds in materials and the rest in free labour.

We saw what looked like bagpipes hanging on a cottage wall and learned that dog skins had no sweat pores and thus were water proof. The skins were then sealed, filled with water and hung over the side of small boats as fenders. It seems that smugglers would sometimes fill them with rum or whiskey. When the authorities were nearby they would quickly drink them down and thus, the expression,"Had a skin full."

The Manx sheep, Loaghtan, with weird combinations of horns, grazed in the paddocks along with horses and cattle.

We really enjoyed our visit to Cregneash. It was peaceful and yet we caught a glimpse of the lives of the people of the past, good and bad.