Any comments, errors or omissions gratefully received
The Editor
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© F.Coakley , 2026
[from A.M Harrision's Descriptive List of Insular Societies]
Actuated by the highest motives, the Editors of the Isle of Man newspapers, along with several well-known public gentemen, in the spring of 1911, met to discuss the the problem of how best to create a connecting link between the Manx at home and the Manx abroad, and it was then decided to form the World Manx Association.' (Mona's Herald, 16 October 1912). This was conceived as a central coordinating office for the many Manx national societies which were then forming throughout the British Isles and all over the world wherever Manx expatriates gathered together.
Exiles had usually gathered together in a social context in order to think of their homeland and to affirm its culture and heritage. This was still a perceived need but a new breed of expatriate Manxman was identified by an Isle of Man Times correspondent in the issue of 11 July 1914.
The gathering of Manx folks from every quarter of the Globe which assembled in the Nunnery Grounds [ the Douglas setting of the fourth annual gathering of the World Manx Association ] was not particularly interested in the Manx language or in Manx folklore; but it was tremendously interested in the Manx idea. Its members did not know why they loved their native Island, but they did love it. 'The work of national literary research and the fostering of the national entity was being excellently performed by what was then called the Manx Language Society [Yn Cheshagt Guilckagh ]. But there was a social aspect of patriotic endeavour which a purely literary and philological society was too limited in its appeal to accomplish. ' The 473 Manx residents and the 4,000 economic migrants of the Manx diaspora affiliated to the Association in 1914, 'Manx-born people from every important city in England or in America, and from almost every corner of the habitable globe' were certainly more interested in the economic and commercial side of the Association and the suggestion of a Manx Emigrants Information bureau to assist potential emigrants, but the first emergence of a tone of nationalistic patriotism, born, ironically, out of the typically British new self- confidence of the Manx empire-builder and possibly heightened by the committee's newspaper interests, is the main impression of the Nunnery meeting.
The Association had from its start 'an ambitious programme. They realise the modern tendency of disintegration - the lack of purely national ideals in our public life, and in our political leaders. It will be the aim of the W.M.S[ its first title] to point the way to a purer national spirit,to the encouragement of home industry and commerce; to the unification of the Manx race'. The fostering of the 'sacred fire of patriotism' the awakening of the almost dormant national spirit to bring the homeland to prosperity and wealth and and the desire to make the association 'the lamp at which the Sons of Mona abroad may be able to catch, and keep alight, the patriotic fire' were expressed ideals in the inauguration of the association in 1911.
In 1923 the Association first published its magazine Ellan Vannin, 'as the means of encouraging and fostering the national spirit and and of drawing together in the closest bonds our scattered nation.' The Editor's aim was 'to give items about Manx happenings at home and abroad; to publish articles instructive on Manx Lore, History, Literature, Architecture, etc., and, not least, to have a Children's Corner, with things of interest to the newly-formed children's branch so warmly taken up by our young friends.' Ellan Vannin was last published in 1928.
The Association's entry in the 1997 Isle of Man Official Year Book is as follows:
'This association is a federation of Manx societies located in various parts of the world. It keeps in touch with these societies, and extends a welcome to all homecoming Manx when they visit the Island of their birth or ancestry. The W.M.A Annual Gathering usually takes place on the evening of July 4th - when any Homecomer who would like to join the gathering should contact one of the officials to arrange to attend. The World Manx Association is a non-political group and membership is open to Manx people and their descendants'.
Isle of Man newspapers, ut supra et passim ;
Manx Quarterly , 1914,no..ii
Ellan Vannin, passim
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Any comments, errors or omissions gratefully received
The Editor |
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