page_title: Mona Douglas
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Mona Douglas / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: The Reih Bleeaney Vanannan trophy, the Isle of Man's most prestigious annual award for culture.
context_page_description: Mona Douglas MBE RBV was a Manx cultural activist, folklorist, poet, novelist and journalist. She is recognised as the main driving force behind the modern revival of Manx culture and is acknowledged as the most influential Manx poet of the 20th century, but she is best known for her often controversial work to preserve and revive traditional Manx folk music and dance. She was involved in a great number of initiatives to revive interest and activity in Manx culture, including societies, classes, publications and youth groups. The most notable and successful of these was Yn Chruinnaght.
context_section_description: The estimation of Douglas at the end of her life was immediately shown through a series of memorial services and concerts that followed in the months after her death. This was followed in 1988 with the posthumous awarding of the Reih Bleeaney Vanannan award for outstanding contributions to Manx culture.
  Numerous recent publications have been made on Douglas' life and work, notably Mona Douglas: A Tribute edited by Fenella Bazin in 1998 and "Restoring to use our almost-forgotten dances": The collection and revival of Manx folk song and dance edited by Stephen Miller in 2004, the extended proceedings of a one-day conference held in Douglas in April 2000.
  In recognition of their lasting national importance, Douglas' papers had been deposited with the archives of the Manx National Heritage Library at her death. These were an unsorted and uncatalogued collection of "everything from bank statements and bills to original manuscripts and unpublished works," until Autumn 2003 when a Culture Vannin grant enabled Dr Breesha Maddrell "to sift through them, collate them and then make a detailed assessment of their value and content."
  Also in 2003, Douglas' 1944 book, Islanders, featured on a Manx stamp. This was as a part of The Manx Bookshelf series of six stamps released by the Isle of Man Post Office to celebrate works of fiction associated with the Isle of Man. Other writers featured included Agatha Christie, Hall Caine and Nigel Kneale.
  In 2012, the 25th anniversary of Douglas' death was marked with a series of events on the Isle of Man, including a special concert of songs and dances held in Peel and recorded for subsequent release on DVD and CD, and a talk on her life and work in Ramsey.
  In 2017 a CD/DVD inspired by the work of Mona Douglas was released by Culture Vannin. Mona's Isle: The Legacy of Mona Douglas featured many leading contemporary Manx musicians, including Aalin Clague, Annie Kissack, Bob Carswell, Breesha Maddrell, Clare Kilgallon, Dave Kilgallon, Dave Mclean, Greg Joughin and Mandy Griffin.  Two of Douglas' previously unpublished plays were also released in 2017, having been discovered within the archive of Manx dialect plays held by The Michael Players. The plays, The Widow's House and The Anniversary, were published to coincide with the 30th anniversary of her death on 8 October 2017.
  Although Douglas is recognised as the "most influential" Manx poet of the 20th Century, interest in her writings has waned since her death. Today she is best remembered for her work to reinvigorate and reignite interest in Manx culture, particularly with regards to Manx music and dance, such as through Yn Chruinnaght. Douglas' "extraordinary stamina" was all the more remarkable in that she was forced to work "tirelessly against the tide of public opinion which saw little value in what she was doing." Douglas' resilience can perhaps be attributed to her basic love of the Isle of Man, as she expressed in many ways during her life:
  "But behind all the rest, for me, is always the beauty and mystery and glory of our own Sacred Island, Ellan Vannin in the heart which is for ever our Mother and Queen to be adored and served, the ideal to be kept inviolate for those who shall follow us, and so handed on: our inspiration, and our ultimate rest – Ellan Vannin dy bragh!"
caption: The Reih Bleeaney Vanannan Trophy
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