Destination: British Isles : Rooting for the Celts : On the Isle of Man, ancient cultures mix with pastoral peace--and the racket of motorcycles

RAMSEY, Isle of Man —  Ten thousand years ago a warming of the world’s temperature brought about the slow disintegration of the vast ice mantle that covered a large part of the Northern Hemisphere.

As the massively thick glacier slowly melted and retreated northward, an island was revealed in what is now called the Irish Sea. To the east of it was a large land mass, later to be known as Great Britain; to the west, Ireland. Among its earliest human inhabitants were the Celts and later the Vikings.

My husband, James, and I were visiting the Isle of Man for the second summer in two years, and finding its tranquil beauty a balm after a particularly busy year in Oxford. Although only a four-hour ferry ride from Britain, the island’s mild climate--with temperatures conducive to the growing of palms--was another attraction. We had even considered moving here during one of our frequent moments of wanderlust. As we stood on the deck of the ferry approaching the island, its capital, Douglas, sparkled in the late afternoon August sunshine. The heavy pounding of King Orry’s engines reverberated through the deck as we moved ever closer across a millpond sea.

Once a popular retreat for the northern English before they gravitated to the more exotic European scene, the Isle of Man is now home to many British millionaires. Low taxes and a more relaxed lifestyle have coaxed the likes of Nigel Mansell of Formula One racing car fame, and Norman Wisdom, a well-loved English comedian, across the Irish Sea to Man.

With its own government and remnants of the original Gaelic (Manx) language, the island has long attracted the curious. North Americans, many of them of Manx descent, come here to discover more about their Celtic roots. Europeans are drawn by the annual International Car Rally and the motorcycle races held on this sliver of land only 13 miles wide and 33 miles long.

For those of us who prefer tranquility, there are rocky cliffs with an ever-changing sea bird population, wooded glens nestling in deep clefts where hill meets hill and fishing harbors with lighthouses and sandy coves at frequent intervals along the beautiful coastline. Each year, toward the end of May, more than 12,000 motorcycle enthusiasts, with every imaginable make of motorcycle, and thousands of fans descend on the island for the world famous T.T. (Tourist Trophy) Races. This massive, two-week invasion causes a logistic nightmare for the ferry company responsible for transporting them from England. The attraction: some of the most challenging motorcycle races in the world--over a 37 3/4-mile course through villages and along mountain roads. Island roads are closed to traffic on race days, and at a humpbacked bridge in the middle of a small village called Ballaugh spectators wait in anticipation mixed with dread as each entrant hits the bridge and becomes airborne.

From the nightmarish noise of the races it is never more than a 30-minute drive to the wooded glens nestled in 17 valleys spread across the island. Glen Wyllin, Laxey Glen and Silverdale are recreational areas with campsites and playgrounds. In spring and summer, Colby Glen, inland from Port Erin, is filled with a dense profusion of wild bluebells and primroses. Others such as Glen Helen, Glen Mooar and Ballaglass are magical places with towering American sequoias and massive English oaks, steep-sided cliffs festooned with ferns and wildflowers dripping with moisture thrown up by the spray of waterfalls. Delicate wooden bridges crisscross swiftly flowing streams and there is a quietness, save for the sound of the water and the muted twittering of birds. One feels there could be fairies here.

Certainly the Manx do. While riding with a friend on our August trip, I was surprised and interested to see her raise her hand and whisper “Laa Mie” (good day) as we approached Fairy Bridge on the main Douglas-to-Castletown road. “What was that about?” I asked, puzzled. “Just a Manx custom,” she said and smiled mysteriously. “Themselves [the fairies] can be vindictive if not acknowledged.”

Witches are another part of the Celtic tradition. Once again out with my friend, we visited Primrose Hill in the northern reaches of the island. The scene before us--a hill and surrounding fields covered with flowering gorse--was once a gruesome place. In earlier times, anyone accused of being a witch was placed in a spiked barrel--spikes on the inside--and trundled off down Primrose Hill. If the accused died, she was a witch; if she survived, she was not a witch.

In order not to neglect our stomachs, we took advantage of the sea’s bounty and feasted on mouthwatering fish and chips, Manx Queenies (a small variety of scallop considered a delicacy) and juicy brown kippers, rightly called the “king of the sea.” The latter are so delicious partly because of the vast amounts of plankton available for them to feed on in the Irish Sea. We ate all of the above, and more, in a number of island eateries: the Calf Sound Cafe, a modest place right on the water looking across the sound to the island called Calf of Man; the Waterfall Hotel in Glen Maye, and the Creek Inn in Peel, a seaside resort on the west coast.

Manx lamb is well known, and I heartily recommend Manx ice cream, which we bought from ice cream carts on the Promenade in Douglas. It’s said to be comparable to the best ice cream in Europe, and is certainly as creamy as Cornish ice cream. My husband also makes it a point to get a glass of Manx Bushy Beer, a rich, amber-colored brew served all over the island, including Bushy’s Bar on Loch Promenade in Douglas.

On the southern tip of the island, at a place called Spanish Head, there is a formation of high cliffs with deep fissures of varying widths, called the Chasms. One can stand astride many of these great faults and look 200 feet and more down narrow crevices to the crashing sea below. The cry of sea birds here--auks and gulls, kittiwakes and shags, as they wheel and dive above the heaving ocean--is a plaintive, unforgettable sound.

Not far from the Chasms, across a narrow channel of water, the Calf of Man is a small hilly island preserved as a bird sanctuary by the Manx National Trust. In spring, the island is a passionate place with a breeding population of about 40 different species including the puffin and the chough.

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There are many folks today, including myself, who look to the past and the life of the crofter with lingering nostalgia. But how many of us really know what hardships they endured? These peasant farmers rented small patches of barren land from rich landowners and struggled to feed their families from its often unyielding soil. Crofting is no longer a way of life on the Isle of Man, but in 1938 the Manx Museum and National Trust built the Cregneash Village Folk Museum, a full-size village restored to resemble a 19th-Century crofting community.

I visited by myself on a cloudy, misty afternoon. The buildings were beautifully restored: the weaver’s cottage with loom, the blacksmith’s shed, the farmers’ cottages and the turner’s (carpenter’s) shed. Women, dressed in the style of the 19th Century, went about their farm chores as they would have long ago and men worked in the fields building up haystacks.

I stopped in at the visitors center next door to a small restaurant that serves home-cooked meals, or just a cup of tea with scones and cake. According to a brochure, one of the thatched cottages at Cregneash was once the home of a Manx crofter named Harry Kelly. He and his antecedents lived on this spot for 300 years. In the community of a dozen families or so, each family grew their own food and tended their livestock on sometimes no more than an acre. Children in those days numbered between 10 and 12. Although a large family was useful for the land work, imagine 12 people, together with chickens and pigs, squeezing into a one- or two-room cottage. To supplement their diet, the men spent their summers at sea catching the herring that was to be their winter food.

Today the fields around the neat whitewashed cottages at Cregneash support a flock of Manx Loaghtan sheep, an ancient breed whose origins are still a matter for speculation. Some say they were brought to the island by the Vikings; others say they may have come from Iceland or the Shetlands. What is certain is that they differ in appearance from their mainland brothers. The ram has four horns and sometimes six.

Their coffee-colored fleece is prized by hand-spinners not only for its hardiness but for the delicate silky yarn it produces. In the 1940s, at Cronk Moar near Jurby on the northwest coast, a small piece of cloth woven from Loaghtan fleece and estimated to be between 3,000 and 4,000 years old was unearthed from a Viking grave by a German archeologist. Island craft shops sell prime examples of Loaghtan yarn worked into sweaters, scarves, mittens and hats.

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In fact, the island’s unique collection of Loaghtan sheep are not the only unusual breed on the island. The Manx cat is another. This peculiarly tailless breed is said to have first been seen here about 300 years ago. Because of the strange hopping movement of some Manx, people say they are the result of a cross between a rabbit and a cat. Actually, the Manx is the way it is because of a genetic irregularity of the spine. In spite of, or because of this, they are very popular, and cat lovers from far afield travel to the Isle of Man to see and to buy them.

There are 500 miles of roadway throughout the island and traffic jams are almost unheard of. We were fortunate to be staying in Iris House, a beautiful Victorian townhouse in Ramsey, with a bus stop outside the front door. From there we could ride the double-deck buses all over the island. Or, if we turned right as we left Iris House, a five-minute walk would get us to the picturesque Ramsey fishing harbor, the center of town and the Manx Tourist Authority.

In the opposite direction, five minutes’ walk brought us to the railway station, where we boarded a Victorian electric railway car for a journey into Douglas via Laxey, a charming seaside resort with the world’s largest working waterwheel, 72 feet in diameter. Day tickets from Ramsey to Douglas and back cost $5 per adult--a journey that must be one of the island’s top bargains. The route meandered through golden flowering gorse, along cliffs overlooking the sea and past small neat farms.

Victorian steam trains, electric railway cars and horse-drawn trams makes “getting there” an intriguing part of any day trip.

The narrow gauge steam railway took us to Port Erin, where there is an almost circular bay with safe swimming. We picnicked in Bradda Glen, finishing up on the rocky cliffs of Bradda Head with its glorious views of the Calf of Man.

A ride on the Mountain Railway takes you to the summit of Snaefell (Norse for snow mountain), the island’s highest peak, 2,036 feet above sea level. At the top is the Summit Hotel, the highest public house in the Isle of Man, with views, as the Manx say, of six kingdoms: Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales, Man and Heaven.

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GUIDEBOOK: This Man Is an Island

Getting there: From LAX fly nonstop to London Heathrow on American, United, Delta, British Air, Air New Zealand, Virgin Atlantic; advance-purchase round-trip fares start at about $875, including taxes and fees. Other U.S. carriers offer direct flights.

Manx Airlines (telephone 011-44-345-256256) has frequent daily flights (70 minutes) from Heathrow to Ballasalla on Isle of Man; tickets about $218-$258 round trip, depending on length of stay.

British Rail travels (about four hours) from London to the coastal town of Heysham for about $100 round trip; tel. (800) 677-8585. The Isle of Man Steam Packet Co. operates ferries from Heysham, Liverpool and Fleetwood to Douglas for about $55-$65 round trip; tel. 011-44-1624-661661.

Where to stay: Grand Island Hotel, Bride Road, Ramsey; tel. 011-44-1624-812455, fax 011-44- 1624-815291. Georgian manor house B&B; in a garden with bay views, health and leisure club; from $70 to $116 per person per night.

Iris House, 1 Albert Square, Ramsey; tel. and fax 011-44-1624-812729. Premier townhouse with main floor adapted for disabled guests; from $540 weekly.

Hydro Hotel, Queen’s Promenade, Douglas; tel. 011-44-1624-676870. B&B; from about $30 per person.

Bramble Apartments, The Brambles, Traie Meanagh Drive, Port Erin; tel. 011-44-1624-835768, fax 011-44-1624-835492. Luxurious apartments overlooking Port Erin Bay; about $305-$670 per week.

Groudle Glen Cottages, Onchan; tel. 011-44-1624-623075. Three miles from Douglas, overlooking a glen and the sea; about $616 per week in summer; $313 winter.

For more information: British Tourist Authority, 551 Fifth Ave., Suite 701, New York 10176-0799, (800) 462-2748 or (212) 986-2200; fax (212) 986-1188.

--A.G.