Getting Oriented

Getting Oriented

Montserrat is a small island about 25 mi (40 km) southwest of Antigua. Named by Columbus after a Catholic abbey near Barcelona—Santa Maria de Montserrate—the island was settled predominantly by Irish Catholics who had once been indentured servants in the West Indies. The numbers of Irish waned, but their influence remained. The island rumbled into the media in 1995, when the Soufriére Hills Volcano suddenly erupted and covered the capital, Plymouth, in ash.



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