The Caribbean's Pompeii — the Soufrière Hills volcano buried the colonial capital Plymouth in 1997 under pyroclastic flows, George Martin's famous AIR Studios recorded the Rolling Stones here, and the island is called the Emerald Isle for its Irish Caribbean heritage
Montserrat is a British Overseas Territory in the Leeward Islands — a volcanic island whose southern half was buried under pyroclastic flows when the Soufrière Hills Volcano erupted in 1995–1997, destroying the colonial capital Plymouth and forcing the evacuation of most of the island's population. Plymouth, buried under 12 metres of volcanic ash with clock tower still visible, has become the Caribbean's Pompeii — an exclusion zone attraction where guided tours reveal abandoned buildings frozen in time. The northern half of the island remains inhabited and lush. George Martin established AIR…
Montserrat was colonised in 1632 by Irish Catholics fleeing Protestant persecution in the neighbouring British colony of St. Kitts — the only Caribbean island to have an Irish majority in the colonial period. The Irish brought enslaved Africans and eventually the Irish-African Creole population became the majority. The island's shamrock symbol, Irish place names (St. Patrick's, Galway's Estate), and the March 17 St. Patrick's Day national holiday (which here commemorates both the Irish heritage AND a 1768 slave uprising by enslaved people who used the St. Patrick's Day festivities as cover) m…