3-070-944 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Elections in the Isle of Man: fishermen's cottages at Port St. Mary, 1881. 'Our Illustration of the dwellings and home life of Manx fishermen has a little occasional interest, since the first Session of the newly-elected "House of Keys," the island legislative assembly, was opened on Tuesday week...Our Artist's Sketch was taken at Port St. Mary, sometimes called Port-le-Murrey, in the south-west corner of the island, near Port Erin, which is the nearest to the shores of Ireland...Port St. Mary, as well as Peel, on the western shore of the island, has a large share of the herring fishery; its inhabitants own about eighty fishing-smacks, manned by six hundred men and boys...the Cornish and Irish fishing- boats, which are, together, far more numerous than all those of the Manxmen, are wont to assemble at Port St. Mary. Both those places, in the fishing season, present a lively sight; and it is pretty to watch the fleet of boats, with their brown sails glowing in the morning or evening sunshine, as they put forth to sea for the nightly labour among a vast shoal of herrings, or as they return with daylight bringing an abundant load of the finny prey. The Manx fishermen and peasants are good, honest, sober, and quiet folk'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.