Mann & The Sea

In the Isle of Man, no one is ever very far from the sea. For its inhabitants the surrounding waters have always been central to life, providing fish and seabirds to eat, weed to fertilise the soil, and the routes over which they have sailed to trade, legally or illegally, with surrounding lands.

For centuries the fishing industry was a pillar of the Manx economy and intimately bound up with traditional ways of Manx life.

It was asserted in 1883 that "In the Isle of Man one person out of every five depends on fishing for his daily bread, and one person out of every four is directly or indirectly dependent on fishing for a livelihood".

Many of the Manx people financially dependent on the sea never actually set foot on a boat. Instead they worked in associated trades and crafts such as; boat-building, net-making, sail making and fish curing all vital to keep the fishermen and seamen afloat.

However, the Manx harbours were not just centres for the fishing industry. They were also a hive of commercial activity throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Trading schooners brought goods from all over the world to ports in the Isle of Man, and local products were exported.

The Manx ports are the obvious places to search for evidence of the Island's long association with the sea. Some of the harbour frontages have changed in recent years, but there are still many clues to the Manx maritime tradition