The exact date of Tynwald's creation is lost in the mists of time, however the Members of Tynwald voted in the mid 1970's to mark the parliament's millennium in 1979.
The Millennium Stone is one of many memorials erected around the Island to mark the Millennium, but given its location is perhaps the most significant.
Below are the names of the six Manx districts: Glenfaba, Ayre, Middle, Michael, Carff, Rushen. There is no information about the origins of the stone or its significance.
'Tynwald In History"Our little nation is the only Norse nation now on earth that can shake hands with the days of the Sagas, and the Sea-Kings. Then let him who will laugh at our primitive ceremonial. It is the badge of our ancient liberty, and we need not envy the man who can look on it unmoved".
The observer at St. John's on 5th July, the Manx National Day, watches a ceremony which has continued unchanged, except in detail, for more than 1,000 years. The annual outdoor sittings of Tynwald, the Manx Parliament, date back to the Viking settlements which began in the eighth century of the first millennium AD. No other parliament in the world has such a long unbroken record.' (
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The Isle of Man is not part of the United Kingdom, but a Crown Dependency. Her Majesty The Queen is acknowledged as Lord of Mann. King George VI was the first British Sovereign ever to preside at St. Johns, in July 1945, and Her Majesty The Queen presided in 1979 when the Millennium of Tynwald was celebrated. His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales presided on Tynwald Day 2000 as her representative.
The following is an extract from an article in The New York Time of 6 July 1979:
ST. JOHN'S, Isle of Man, July 5 [1979]— At least a thousand years ago, a hundred years before the Battle of Hastings, the intrepid Vikings who settled this island in the Irish Sea gathered on an ancient burial mound to establish a parliament.
The Tynwald, as they called it, has endured without interruption to this day. The exact date of its creation is lost in the mists of centuries, but the Manxmen, the 60,000 people who live on the 221-square-mile island, decided after protracted deliberation to celebrate the millennium this year.
So it was that this morning Queen Elizabeth II, in her capacity as Lord of Man, mounted a three-tiered mound here in the center of the island. Sitting on a red velvet chair beneath a yellow marquee, she presided over the annual open-air meeting at the Tynwald Hill, with its pageantry and bilingual ritual.
Echoes of the Pagan Past
The Queen, who is the sovereign of this self-governing dependency of the British Crown, presented the staves of office to the four coroners, or law officers. She listened to the proclamation of the 18 laws passed during the past year by the two-house Tynwald (it is the 24-seat lower house, the House of Keys, that has the ancient lineage). She received four petitions from Manx citizens.' (
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