Sacred Places, Sacred Spaces Within The Manx Landscape with Tony Cain

Certain sites within our wonderful landscape may be perceived as Sacred Places, Sacred Spaces...

Join us on an exciting journey of discovery as we explore particular locations in terms of ancestral belief systems, identity and attachment. What connected our forefathers (some dating back thousands of years) to particular places? How did belief systems through ritual connect people to these specific localities? To what extent was a wider cosmology a significant factor in the choice of location?

In order to wrestle with such profound questions we shall consider the Neolithic (New Stone Age) monuments within the Isle of Man, for example, Cashtal yn Ard (Maughold), King Orry's Graves (Laxey) and The Meayll Circle (Cregneash). Discussion will also focus around keeills (small single-celled rectilinear chapels), the remains of which some 170 are known, with about 35 surviving as visible features.

What can the landscape settings, and in some instances, their proximity to natural features like streams and waterfalls, tell us about the worldview of those who built these monuments? What factors influenced the creation, content and meaning attributed to such "special" places. As an Island, we must also take into account the importance and significance of that liminal space (boundary zone) between land and sea.

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