Poetry, music and performance will help commemorate the birth of a Manx cultural icon this weekend.

The Manx Branch of the Celtic Congress will present ’A Manks Concert for Sophia Morrison’ tonight (Friday) at the Peel Centenary Centre, from 7.30pm.

The evening will feature music from harpist Mera Royle and the Gaelic choir Caarjyn Cooidjagh, who released their latest album last weekend, along with poetry from the Manx Bard Annie Kissack and a recitation of T.E.Brown poetry from Deborah Taubman.

There will also be another chance to see the performance of a Manx dialect play, ’In The Doctor’s Waiting Room’, by the Michael Players, first performed at the Oie’ll Verree concert at the beginning of the year.

The ’Manks’ concert is normally held towards the end of January, and was conceived to mark the centenary of the death of Sophia Morrison, who is held in high regard due to her work in preserving and recording Manx culture, music and language.

However, the date of the concert has been moved to this week to coincide with the 160th anniversary of her birth.

The evening will also see the presentation of an award for a short story competition.

Organiser Bob Carswell said it is the first time they have run this competition and they have been impressed with the standard of entries.

’Part of the remit of the Celtic Congress is to promote and encourage the growth and use of the Gaelic language in each nation, and we decided that a good way to do this was with a short story competition,’ said Bob.

’Overall, the stories were very enjoyable, and written with a very good standard of Manx vocabulary.

’As this is the first year we had run the competition, we really didn’t know what to expect, in term of numbers, or quality.

’But we’ve had eight entries in for this year, all of which showed that there is a lot of scope for the competition to grow in the future.’

It is hoped that the competition will become an annual event.

Tickets for the concert are £7 and are available from Celtic Gold, Michael Street, Peel, or online at etickets/cc

They are also available from Bob, on 844270 or by email to [email protected]

Tickets will also be available on the door.