There were a large number of Hunt the Wren events taking place across the island on Thursday.

As one of the island’s longest-standing Manx Christmas traditions, it sees people coming together to sing and dance around the wren bush.

Traditionally held each year on December 26, it dates back to pre-Christian times, and is centred on 'the king of all birds', which is hunted and then danced through the streets on a special pole.

In recent years, this custom has seen an unprecedented growth in popularity, with the large groups in the eight locations around the island gaining numbers year on year.

It centres on a wren, ‘the king of all birds’, which was danced through the streets on the wren pole.

Communities such as Douglas, Ramsey, Willaston, Sulby and Kirk Michael take part each year, and 2024 was no different.

For centuries, the tradition was widely practised across the Europe, but interest began declining in about the 1900s.

Since then, the Isle of Man is one of the only places in the world that still ‘hunts the wren'.