Annie Kissack RBV

In March 2025, at a special ceremony held in Douglas, the Manx capital, the poet Annie Kissack was named Reih Bleeaney Vanannan for 2025. With its initials tacked onto the awardee’s name, if they so choose – much like the MBE or OBE – the RBV is the highest cultural honour in the island nation. Also known as Manannan’s Choice of the Year it is awarded by Culture Vannin, and deliberated by a panel of representatives from Yn Cheshaght Ghailckagh, Yn Chruinnaght, Manx National Heritage, IoM Arts Council and Culture Vannin itself. Kissack receives the RBV in recognition of her lifelong contribution to arts, culture and education – with the Manx Gaelic language remaining at the heart of her activities. Following in the footsteps of female champions Sophia Morrison, Josephine Kermode and Mona Douglas, Kissack has been a contemporary force behind the revitalisation of Manx language and culture through the late-twentieth and twenty-first centuries, with focus on traditional and original song, music and choral arranging, poetry, literature and folklore.

Kissack earned an MA in Manx Studies the University of Liverpool's Centre for Manx Studies and her interest in Manx Gaelic was nurtured by her teacher at Onchan School, Leslie Quilliam RBV – something encouraged by her parents, who were also adult learners and long-term supporters of the language.  Kissack first encountered revivalist and cultural ambassador Mona Douglas as part of the Manx youth movement, Aeglagh Vannin, in the 1960s. There, she developed a love of performance through concerts, plays and competitions, including annual festival Yn Chruinnaght, of which she went on to become a president in adult life. A renowned singer and musician, she has regularly represented Man at inter-Celtic festivals – something which began for her as a teenager and continues to this day. At home, she has been an integral part of the Perree Bane dance group and Caarjyn Cooidjagh Manx Gaelic choir, and as a multi-instrumentalist she is also a member of the Arthur Caley Giant Band. 

Widely lauded for her musical arrangements and poetry around the world, in 2001, she was the recipient of the inaugural award for artistic merit from the Daaue-Scoill in Northern Ireland, and in 2013 her songs and arrangements brought success for Caarjyn Cooidjagh, at the Pan-Celtic Festival. She has been described as “a vital force in not only preserving and promoting, but also creatively developing the Isle of Man’s rich tapestry of cultural heritage”, by Manx cultural body Culture Vannin. 
A teacher by profession, Kissack’s adult life has been spent educating through the Gaelic medium at Bunscoill Ghaelgagh. There and via other ventures, she has supported some of the next generation’s key exponents of the Manx language including academic and writer Custal y Lewin, singer Ruth Keggin and musician Isla Callister. As young parents living in Cregneash, Kissack and husband Phil Gawne ensured that the Manx language was passed intergenerationally onto their children. They both had a key role in establishing Manx language provision for early years – namely Yn Chied Chesmad playgroup and Mooinjer Veggey, later a pre-school initiative. Early successes led to the establishment of Bunscoill Ghaelgagh in 2001, buoyed by nascent demand for Manx-language primary education.

In later life, Kissack went on to be recognised as a poet, actor and playwright. Crowned the fifth Manx Bard in 2018, she published her first collection, Mona Sings (Culture Vannin) in 2022, having featured in various international anthologies. Her poems describe the Isle of Man’s landscape, people and the sense of place, and this is also reflected in her plays, such as In-Between Times. Here we share two key works – one published, the other unpublished – translated into Gaelic for the first time by Northwords Now Gaelic Editor, Marcas Mac an Tuairneir.