I had a local news source on looking for information on ‘The Chronicles of the Kings of Man and the Isles’ our oldest manuscript squirreled away in the BRITISH LIBRARY – what an outrage by the Brits!
It occurs to me that quite a few people may be unclear on the background to the campaign by the Celtic League for their return or indeed on the Celtic artefacts project.
Here are some pointers:
You can find some news items by typing ‘Chronicles’ in the search box (top left) on the main Celtic League site at:
There is also the dedicated Celtic League artefacts site:
http://celticartefacts.yolasite.com/
Comment can be linked to other Celtic artefacts news – so say typing ‘Chessmen’ as in Lewis Chessmen – may throw up Chronicles comment in the main site search.
The older Celtic League internet archive (covering the 1990s is a pdf file at:
https://www.celticleague.net/…/Celtic_League_News_Archive.p…
Again Ctrl+F and type in Chronicles will throw up a few items and indeed the first indicates the Chronicles were first loaned back for the visit of the President of Ireland to open the House of Manannan in 1997.
Celtic League correspondence with the UK and Manx government plus the British Library in addition to news cuttings etc is all lodged open access with MNH Library. They Library usually ask for prior notice if you are going to look at CL papers as there are a sizeable number of boxes lodged with them. However the specific material should be catalogued so the Calf of Man and Chronicles items may be easily recovered.
Celtic League internet news which holds almost 5000 news items covering 2001 and 2011 is held on our Yahoo news site. THIS IS NOT OPEN ACCESS but news items here for example record the call of the late Sir Charles Kerruish in 2008 for the Chronicles return. It also documents League AGM resolutions. CL Yahoo also has a news item on the rejection by the British government to engage in ANY talks on the matter after a Tynwald resolution on the issue in 2008.
Individual CARN issues from approx 1988 also carry news items theses are online at https://www.celticleague.net/
Incidentally the Celtic League refuses to supply ‘legal deposit’ copies of CARN to the British Library because of the Chronicles issue. The requirement to supply CARN a ISSN registered publication is a legal requirement which has been in place for publications since 1662. The British Library have never pressed the issue.
Note: There are 6 UK legal deposit libraries. In addition to the British Library, they are:
National Library of Scotland
National Library of Wales
Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Cambridge University Library
Library, Trinity College Dublin’
‘Legal deposit’ copies of CARN to the National (Scotland and Wales) and University Libraries above are unaffected.
IOM Newspapers used to have an excellent online archive and indeed the paper did run a campaign. Sadly after the last change of ownership the archives are no longer accessible
Images:
Guess who? There is a sizeable archive of material from Celtic League in the MNH Library including correspondence cuttings etc on The Chronicles.
The Chronicles.
Bernard Moffatt
Assistant General Secretary
Celtic League
