18 Facts About Doug Fargher

Doug Fargher known as Doolish y Karagher or Yn Breagagh, was a Manx language activist, author, and radio personality who was involved with the revival of the Manx language on the Isle of Man in the 20th century.

Doug Fargher is best known for his English-Manx Dictionary, the first modern dictionary for the Manx language.

Doug Fargher married Joyce Barry in 1954 at Kirk Braddan church in a ceremony conducted in Manx by Rev William Wood.

On his return to the Isle of Man, Fargher ran a fruit importing business on Ridgeway Street in Douglas.

Douglas Fargher was one of the several active Manx speakers who learned the language from the diminishing number of elderly native speakers on the Isle of Man in the 1940s and 1950s.

Doug Fargher organised Methodist church services through Manx to raise the profile of the language.

Doug Fargher helped to reinvigorate Yn Cheshaght Ghailckagh when he was elected to the committee in 1972, by organising Oieghyn Gaelgagh and publishing new learner material.

Doug Fargher started broadcasting a weekly 'listen and learn' radio programme in which he taught the lessons from John Gell's Conversational Manx to listeners.

On Sunday 11 October 1970 Doug Fargher read the first ever news report in the Manx language on Manx Radio.

Doug Fargher released Undin, the spoken dictionary, as an audio resource to help learners to pronounce Manx correctly, on behalf of Yn Cheshaght Ghailckagh.

Doug Fargher was keen to avoid the inclusion of English idioms and calques, even if they had been used by the last native speakers, and so looked to create new terminology and words.

Doug Fargher described his approach in the preface to his dictionary:.

Doug Fargher often looked to Ireland and the Irish language for inspiration for the creation of new words and idioms.

Doug Fargher described Ireland as being the Manx language movement's "spiritual and cultural motherland".

In 1962, along with fellow Manx speakers Lewis Crellin and Bernard Moffatt, Doug Fargher was one of the first members of Mec Vannin, a small political party aimed at gaining full independence and establishing the Isle of Man as an independent sovereign state.

Doug Fargher described the early 1960s as a period of "great reawakening of national consciousness" and he believed that the language should be the basis of this new nationalist movement.

Doug Fargher believed that the Manx people had an "inferiority complex about their own nationality and their language" and noted that the greatest enthusiasts for Manx Independence were Manx speakers.

Brian Stowell was motivated to learn Manx when he read an article written by Doug Fargher defending the Manx language in late 1953.