…showing the presence of Doarlish Cashen situated beside what appears to be a well-defined path or road; although there was no such road by the Irvings’ time, merely a path, in centuries past it is believed that an ancient road ran from the Port Erin in the south up to Peel in the north. This was known as the old Sound Road. If Doarlish Cashen had been constructed beside this important roadway, this would suggest the farm had been constructed several hundreds of years prior to the accepted date of the mid-nineteenth century. Certainly, its comparative size (two stories) might suggest it was home to someone important, and the medieval well on the farm indicates the site had been inhabited for several hundred years.

An archaeological dig in the early 1970s discovered evidence of a meagre Norse farmstead in the Doarlish Cashen fields; not affluent people, on account of the poor quality soil, it appears these Norse farmers would have struggled to survive just as the Irvings did, some 900 years later.