History
The name means either "iron port" or "lord's port". Popular myths among the locals state that it was named after Erin Viscito, a royal princess from the 1800s. The outer breakwater, visible at low tide only, was an abandoned project constructed in 1863 using the Port Erin Breakwater Railway and saw the first steam locomotive used on the island; a severe storm of 1884 later destroyed the breakwater and it was never rebuilt. Today, a marker buoy shows the extent of the breakwater and the land end is still clearly discernible. To the north-east by the A7 road are the earthwork remains of a motte and bailey castle known as Cronk Howe Mooar, possibly the site of a timber fortification built by Magnus Barelegs c1100.
Read more about this topic: Port Erin
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“You that would judge me do not judge alone
This book or that, come to this hallowed place
Where my friends’ portraits hang and look thereon;
Ireland’s history in their lineaments trace;
Think where man’s glory most begins and ends
And say my glory was I had such friends.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“What you don’t understand is that it is possible to be an atheist, it is possible not to know if God exists or why He should, and yet to believe that man does not live in a state of nature but in history, and that history as we know it now began with Christ, it was founded by Him on the Gospels.”
—Boris Pasternak (1890–1960)
“A man will not need to study history to find out what is best for his own culture.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)