Montserrat has had a difficult few decades.
In July 1995, the Soufrière Hills volcano, dormant for centuries, began erupting. The eruptions continued for years. By 1997, pyroclastic flows had destroyed Plymouth, the capital city, and buried the southern half of the island under meters of volcanic debris. Two-thirds of the island’s population fled to Britain, the United States, and neighboring Caribbean islands.
Plymouth is still there, in the sense that its ruins are still there, buried under ash. It is sometimes called “the Pompeii of the Caribbean.” You can look down at it from the exclusion zone boundary. The clock tower of the old court house points from a sea of gray ash. The southern part of the island remains uninhabitable.
Montserrat now has a population of about 5,000 (down from 12,000 before the eruptions) and a de facto capital at Brades in the northwest, the only part of the island considered safe. The official administrative designation of Plymouth as capital was maintained for years; the island effectively operated from Brades, which was eventually recognized as the seat of government.
All of this runs on Atlantic Standard Time, UTC-4, year-round.
A British territory, Caribbean time
Montserrat is one of fourteen British Overseas Territories. It has internal self-government but the UK is responsible for defense and foreign affairs. The island’s legislature and governor operate from Brades under the oversight of Whitehall, which is UTC±0 in winter and UTC+1 in summer.
The six-hour gap between London and Montserrat in summer, five hours in winter, is the standard challenge of British colonial administration in the Caribbean. London-based civil servants monitoring Caribbean territories must bridge the time gap: afternoon meetings in London overlap with morning hours in Montserrat.
The Emerald Isle of the Caribbean
Montserrat’s nickname is “the Emerald Isle of the Caribbean,” a reference to its large 17th-century Irish settler population. Irish Catholics, transported to the island by Oliver Cromwell after the Irish Confederate Wars (1640s), established plantation agriculture. Their descendants mixed with enslaved Africans; a distinctive Montserratian culture emerged with notable Irish linguistic influence in local place names and some aspects of accent.
Ireland’s relationship with Montserrat is remembered in the island’s shamrock symbol (the stamp, incorporated into many official items) and in St. Patrick’s Day, which Montserrat celebrates as a public holiday: a combined festival of Irish heritage and a commemoration of a slave rebellion that was launched on St. Patrick’s Day in 1768.
Irish pubs in Dublin don’t usually observe UTC-4. Montserrat’s Irish heritage is specific to the Caribbean.
George Martin’s AIR Studios
Before the volcano, Montserrat was famous for another reason: George Martin, the legendary Beatles producer, opened AIR Studios Montserrat in 1979. The facility, located on a hilltop with views of the Caribbean, became one of the most sought-after recording studios in the world.
Artists who recorded there include the Rolling Stones, Elton John, Paul McCartney, Dire Straits, Sting, and many others. The combination of isolation (forcing musicians to focus), tropical beauty, and excellent technical facilities made it exceptional.
Hurricane Hugo destroyed the studio in 1989. Reconstruction never happened. The volcano then buried the ruins under ash. AIR Studios Montserrat is now a memory, but the recordings made there, the Dire Straits album Brothers in Arms among them, are part of the permanent record of music made in UTC-4.
