North American Manx Association

10/05/2026

The most unlikely use of Manx ever...?
Probably, and wonderfully so!

We were delighted to hear of an American podcast about Seinfeld (the 90s American TV show), whose latest episode has them delivering a scene from a classic episode... in Manx!

It sounded made-up, but we were delighted to click through and enjoy their conversation about Manx and its revival (and about the existence of the Isle of Man, to contextualise it for distant viewers!), before they went on to have a go at reading a (great) scene from the show in Manx.
Admittedly, their pronunciation left something to be desired(!), but we were smiling in delight all the way through!

Enjoy:
https://youtu.be/qUszHZ4lybM?si=yBFC-VMs5V5oUI3j

We hope that you will join us in being delighted that Manx and its story can find its way to reach such unexpected corners of the world, taking with it our story of cultural identity and resilience.
Gaelg aboo!

Learn Manx

10/05/2026

Shout out to all local societies and at large members. Please send any photos or brief updates on your local activities to share. Please email by Friday, October 16 to be included in the next NAMA newsletter. Thank you!!!

10/01/2026

09/29/2026

SAVE THE DATE! Our online meetings are a great way for people who live too far from a local society to participate in fun conversations and discover more about their Manx heritage. They're also great for people who do have a local society but just love talking about Manx stuff!

09/29/2026

Fantastic article!

The Raad ny Foillan—Manx Gaelic for "the Way of the Gull”—circles an entire nation. Walk the full loop hotel to hotel over a week or more, or sample its best stretches from a single town.

09/28/2026

POP-UP Hop Tu Naa event! If you're in the area, sign up!

POP_UP EVENT!!!!! Hop-tu-Naa is a Celtic festival celebrated in the Isle of Man on 31 October. It is the celebration of the traditional Gaelic festival of Samhain, the start of winter. Our lovely WAMS member Cynthia, is offering a pop-up event: a turnip (or pumpkin) carving party for Hop-tu-Naa at her house in NW, Washington, DC from 2:00-4:00 on Sunday, October 11. Bring your own turnip. Please comment or email us if you're interested so she can plan accordingly.

09/25/2026

Manx National Heritage has announced that digital access to the Newspapers Online archive through iMuseum.im will cease from 12 October. This will come as a huge blow to NAMA members interested in researching their history.
https://namanx.org/shocking-news-from-the-manx-national-heritage-imuseum

Manx National Heritage announce that digital access to the Newspapers Online archive through iMuseum.im will cease from 12 October. For more than a decade, over 150 years of newspapers have been available digitally through iMuseum, providing an important resource for researchers, family historians,....

09/23/2026

Message from Matt and Catherine: The September 2026 NAMA online meeting will take place on Saturday, September 26th at 12:00 EST/9:00 AM PST

Please attend through the following Google Meet invite: https://meet.google.com/ege-kvxw-jfc

If anyone has interest in presenting or discussing a particular topic, please let Matt know., or comment below. We had a great round-table discussion last call, and I'd love to keep that momentum going!

09/23/2026

📖 In 1937 somebody hit on an unusual way to get the country's stories written down before they went. They sent the schoolchildren to do it.

The scheme ran for about two years and involved something in the region of fifty thousand children across roughly five thousand national schools. They were given copybooks and a list of headings and sent home to their parents, their grandparents and the neighbours. Cures. Local place names. What was done at a wake. Weather signs. Games. The old crafts. The stories told in the house at night. They wrote down what they were told, in pencil, and handed it back in. ✏️

What came out of it is somewhere in the region of half a million manuscript pages, a good deal of it in Irish, and it is one of the largest folklore collections ever gathered anywhere in the world.

But here is the part that matters if you are reading this from abroad. It has been digitised, it is free, and it is searchable by school and by townland. Which means that if your people were in a particular place in the nineteen thirties, there is a fair chance a child out of that townland wrote down what your great-grandparents actually said, in their own words, and you could be reading it tonight.

There is no other record like it anywhere. Nobody was writing down what ordinary country people in Ireland thought about anything, and then for two years, in pencil, in copybooks, somebody was. 🌿