Local musicians and performers went back to church for the annual Mollag Ghennal evening.

The festive concert, which is an informal night of the Manx traditional music and entertainment, took place in Peel Cathedral and featured performances from Clash Vooar, Skeeal Elley, the Mollag Band and the Ballaghs, along with a sing-along section with three ’lockdown lovelies’ and a massed gathering of the many White Boys groups.

The latter featured a comical sword fight between many gaudily-dressed saints from England, Scotland, the Isle of Man, France, Wales and Ireland and resulted in the group producing a 12-pointed star out of the group’s swords, the traditional climax of the White Boys play, albeit usually with fewer people involved.

The evening was organised by Phil Gawne, who sang with two groups, including a version of Johnny Cash’s ’Ring of Fire’ in Manx Gaelic, and performed as the doctor in the White Boys play.

Phil said that the evening raised more than £1,200 for the Mooinjer Veggey charity, which supports children learning through the Manx language at nursery and primary school.

’Mooinjer Veggey was delighted with how well the concert went and pleased to receive so much positive feedback from people who attended,’ said Phil.

’We are of course very grateful to all the performers who made the show such a spectacular night, and we also are very appreciative of the many hours of voluntary support we received from our members and supporters who shifted pews, organised raffles, made food and generally helped run the event.

’Mooinjer Veggey is launching its Manx language teaching resource project this year so the more money we can raise the better the range of learning resources we’ll be able to deliver.

’Mooinjer Veggey did lose quite a bit of money during the lockdown so the funds we raised will certainly be very useful to us.

’We were particularly pleased to be able to use the Cathedral in Peel for this year’s Mollag Ghennal as it is a fantastic venue,’ he continued. ’The staff have been very helpful and supportive and made us very welcome. ’We were a little nervous about Covid as things can change quite rapidly as we found out over Christmas but we were generally unaffected.’

The Mollag Ghennal concert was supported by the Isle of Man Government domestic event fund.