Ballaugh (parish)

For the purposes of local government, the whole of the historic parish forms a single parish district with Commissioners.

The Captain of the Parish (since 1993) is Charles Edgar Cowin.^[1]

Ballaugh parish is part of the Ayre & Michael constituency, which elects two members to the House of Keys. Before 2016, it was in the Michael constituency.

Ballaugh is a mainly agricultural district on the north-western coast of the island. Ballaugh runs for some 3 miles (5 km) along the north-west coastline of the island. The average breadth of the parish is about 3 miles (5 km) and it covers an area of around 9 square miles (23 km²). The south-east corner is hilly and the remainder is low, including part of the marshy depression of the Curraghs.^[2] The only village in the parish is Ballaugh.

There are in Ballaugh a number of sites of historical interest. There is a heritage group who holds regular meetings and arrange walks around the area. Research into the social history of the area, in particular the isolated Glen Dhoo, is being carried out.^[when?] The name 'Ballaugh' derives from the Manx Balley-ny-Loghey or "the place of the lake" cognate with loch and lough. The Ballaugh Curraghs is all that remains of this lake. The lake, which measured up to a mile in length, was drained by the excavation about 300 years ago of the silted-up Lhen Trench which, during the last ice age, is believed to have been a meltwater channel flowing north to south from the melting ice front.

The Isle of Man census of 2016 returned a parish population of 1,032, a decrease of 1% from the figure of 1,042 in 2011.^[3]