Montserrat

Columbus named the island in 1493 for a monastery near Barcelona. From 1632 it was settled by English and Irish Catholics — some indentured, some transported from Ireland under Cromwell, others fleeing anti-Catholic Nevis — which made Montserrat unusually Irish, a fact still marked by the shamrock on its flag and passport stamp. Sugar and lime plantations were worked by enslaved Africans; a revolt planned for St Patrick's Day in 1768 was betrayed and crushed, and is now commemorated alongside the Irish heritage.

After emancipation in 1834 the island grew limes — the origin of the "Montserrat lime" — and stayed a quiet colony. In the 1970s and 80s George Martin's AIR Studios made it a rock-recording destination: Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms, along with albums by Elton John, the Police, and Paul McCartney, were made here. Hurricane Hugo flattened the island in 1989.

Then, in July 1995, the long-dormant Soufrière Hills volcano began to erupt. Pyroclastic flows destroyed the capital, Plymouth, and the airport; nineteen people were killed in 1997; and the southern two-thirds of the island became an Exclusion Zone. The population fell from around 11,000 to about 4,000 as most residents emigrated, many to the United Kingdom. A new capital is being built at Little Bay in the north, with a new airport and port, and the volcano's activity has declined since about 2010, though it is monitored around the clock.

Montserratian culture is English-speaking and Christian, with a proud and much-marketed Irish thread. St Patrick's Day has grown into a ten-day festival that both celebrates the Irish ancestry and remembers the 1768 revolt, and Irish surnames and place names are common. String-band music, masquerade with its "jumbie" dance, and the goat-water stew are older island traditions.

The community is tiny — around 4,400 people — resilient, and closely bound to a diaspora many times its size. The volcano runs through the island's sense of itself: the loss of Plymouth and the villages, the long resettlement in the north, and a dark, matter-of-fact humour about living beside it.

Everyone now lives in the safe northern third of the island; Brades and the rising town at Little Bay serve as the de facto capital. The economy leans heavily on United Kingdom budgetary aid, along with construction, a little tourism — volcano tours, diving, birdwatching — and the mining of the volcanic sand deposits.

Power and water supply are a continuing challenge, and geothermal energy from the volcano is being developed to help. Daily life is rural and car-dependent, crime is almost unknown, and the rhythm is set by the ferry and flight schedule to Antigua and by the Observatory's reports.

"Goat water", a thin goat stew with breadfruit and dumplings, is the national dish, traditionally eaten at celebrations. Saltfish with breadfruit, fresh fish, pumpkin soup, and ducana (a sweet-potato and coconut dumpling) are everyday fare, with johnnycakes alongside. The "mountain chicken", a large native frog once a delicacy, is now protected after disease and the eruptions cut its numbers. Local rum and Sunday soup round out a small, homey food scene.

The volcano and its aftermath are the reason most visitors come. The Montserrat Volcano Observatory has a public viewing deck and exhibits, and guided viewpoints at Jack Boy Hill and Garibaldi Hill look out over the grey, ash-buried ruins of Plymouth — a "modern Pompeii" that can be approached only with a guide and permit when conditions allow.

Away from the volcano, the reefs off the northwest coast — around Woodlands and Rendezvous Bay, the island's one white-sand beach, reached by trail or boat — offer healthy diving and snorkelling; the other beaches are black volcanic sand. The Centre Hills rainforest holds the endemic Montserrat oriole, the national bird, and the Runaway Ghaut spring, which legend says will bring you back to the island if you drink from it. The exterior of the abandoned AIR Studios can be seen on the way, and the St Patrick's Festival in March is the best time to experience the island's culture in full.