ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to elaborate and understand the diversity of interpretation. It draws on the sights and sounds of the day, and the dialectic between the two and focuses on the divergent views of those present and not present. The chapter demonstrates the complexities and contradictions of contemporary Manx society, and aims to explore how a society which has undergone a period and significant social change might begin to ‘manufacture’ an inclusive nationalism which satisfies all ‘interests’. The Isle of Man is situated midway between England and Ireland, in the centre of the Irish Sea. A woman of Manx birth explained that she had not been to Tynwald since returning to the Island after years of working away. Its colonialist overtones, she said, made her feel uncomfortable. Each of the ‘parishes’ in the Isle of Man has a ‘Captain’, whose duties are mainly ceremonial.
