Skellig Michael: Footsteps in Time

To understand this place is to dismiss all romantic and mythical notions and replace them with the brutal reality of the 8th Century. Back then, this was a pilgrimage to the edge of the world

*Skellig Michael with the South Peak shrouded in mist*

Thankfully this is not the 8th Century and we are not sailing to Skellig Michael in a hide-covered boat. Nevertheless, after more than 1300 years a trip out to the UNESCO World Heritage Site remains difficult. The departure point is remote and the landing season short, but most importantly the Atlantic weather and sea conditions can change from day to day which often results in last minute cancellations.

We depart Valentia Island on a calm and overcast morning, out through the Portmagee channel and past the tiny island of Illaunloughan. It bears the remains of a 7th Century monastery that may have been a resting place for exhausted pilgrims before they faced the final leg of their journey to Skellig Michael. Whatever it was it fell into disuse after only two hundred years.

The land slips away and we turn south-west towards two jagged islands eight miles from the mainland. They look thousands of years away. The Skellig Islands broke away from the MacGillycuddy's Reeks 365 million years BP. This was on the eve of the Carboniferous Period when Ireland was in a warm tropical climate somewhere around the latitude of Egypt. The land mass had a long way to go before it reached its present position 25 million years BP. By the end of the last ice age, melting glaciers raised water levels and finally separated the islands from the mainland.

Geological scripture aside, the romantic narrative began much more recently. No one knows for certain when monks first went to Skellig Michael, but in academic circles it’s generally thought to be sometime in the early 8th Century. Some believe St Fionán founded the monastery in the 6th Century, though this has been disputed by historians.

The fabric of Irish culture has been shaped by monastic Ireland, and in particular great intellectual powerhouses such as Clonmacnoise, Clonard and Glendalough. But some early Christians sought a remote and ascetic lifestyle more in keeping with the principles of St Anthony the Great, where getting closer to God meant testing the extremities of human endurance. This ethic was probably why, in the 5th century, St Enda chose to establish his monastery on Inis Mór. You could hardly get more remote than that, at least not until 250 years later when a group of monks stared long and hard at a small splinter of rock far out to sea (sceillec is an ancient Gaelic word for a steep rock or crag). In the 8th Century the bleak and forbidding island was perched entrancingly between life and death. With little embellishment of the imagination it could resemble a finger pointing to heaven. Of course the monks could have opted for an easier life on the mainland, but then half a journey is no journey at all.

No more than a dozen monks lived on the island at any one time, so it’s fair to assume a similar number made the first journey to the island. Today the trip takes about an hour in a small boat, and even in the 8th century it shouldn’t have taken more than two hours if they waited for the right conditions. Sailing Curragh’s had been around for a long time and were ideally suited to the west of Ireland. It’s possible someone brought the monks to the island, leaving them with tools and enough rations to keep them going until they established a steady food source. It’s also likely they would have had some form of boat themselves that could be hauled out of the water in bad weather (there’s evidence of a possible boathouse below the east steps).

Mysticism surrounds Skellig Michael, not least in the fact that it is the beginning of a rhumb line that stretches from Ireland to Israel. This line, with a maximum deviation of 42 miles, connects twelve ecclesiastical sites dedicated to Saint Michael. Almost all are monasteries: Skellig Michael, St Michael's Mount in Cornwall, Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy, Sacra di San Michele in Italy, Chiesa di San Galgano in Italy, Tempio di San Michele di Perugia in Italy, Santuario di San Michele del Gargano in Italy, Delphi in Greece, Island of Delos in Greece, Symi in Greece, Kourion in Cyprus, and Mount Carmel in Jerusalem. Twelve is a recurring number in Christianity. Twelve monks on the island, a ferry that can carry no more than twelve people…the allusion is enticing with more than a little confirmation bias, but there is a sense of pilgrimage in our little cabin as we punch our way through the swell. Even the jagged peaks on the island are beginning to resemble the spires of a cathedral.

We make for Little Skellig, the smaller of the islands and an important breeding centre for gannets. It’s June and 60,000 birds are nesting on the bare rock. This gives it a white appearance, visible from the mainland. Some say it’s because of the guano while others claim it’s due to the birds white plumage. From this perspective it’s probably a result of both. Landing is prohibited during the breeding season. In 2020 a team of archaeologists and climbers discovered the remains of a small monastic site that can only be an extreme extension of the monastery on Skellig Michael. Besides the obvious ascetic conclusion, it’s tempting to think this might be some sort of medieval naughty step for monks. Whatever remains of the oratory has long been colonised by nesting birds, but it’s an important discovery in trying to understand the scope of the monks’ determination.

*Precarious East Steps above Blind Man’s Cove*

There’s just enough time for a tour around Skellig Michael before our allotted landing slot at Blind Man’s Cove. The boat rolls with the swell as it slips slowly past the towering north peak. It looks like a scene from Jurassic Park, or a mythical Hy-Brasil behind a veil of fog. Fine mist moves across the south peak as if to validate our imagination. The island stretches 218 metres (715ft) above sea level and the two distinctive and highly unusual jagged peaks make it look more monolith than island. There are three access points from the sea: Blind Man’s Cove, Blue Cove and South Landing (just south-west of Cross Cove). The monks built steps from the base of all three, presumably so they would have three leeward (depending on prevailing wind and wave patterns) landing and ascent options. Looking up the precipitous walls of rock leads to the inevitable conclusion that what they achieved here is unparalleled anywhere in Ireland. Somewhere up there is a monastery in the clouds.

There are no level sections at the top and the monks had to construct a series of terraces with retaining walls (the terrace containing the small oratory is entirely artificial). Lives must have been lost as they straddled impossible little ledges on makeshift scaffolds or suspended platforms. Of course they could have built lower down and Christ’s Saddle seems an obvious place, but if the saints taught them anything it was that God was unlikely to reward an easy option.

We move around to the west side of the island where the second of two lighthouses is located on a southern spur. Both became operational in 1826. The upper light was decommissioned in 1870 after the establishment of a lighthouse on the Blasket island of Inishtearaght. Its remains can still be seen to the north-west. The Lower Lighthouse is 175 feet above high water and looks heavily fortified. It must have seen some lively action considering the glass of the Fastnet (160ft above sea level) was breached by a rogue wave in 1985. Two keepers lost their lives on Skellig: one fell to his death while cutting grass for his cow shortly after the light entered service, and the other disappeared never to be seen again. The lighthouse became automated in 1987 after 160 years of continuous occupation by keepers.

The Gannets are like missiles dive-bombing the boat. We continue to the landing place at Blind Man’s Cove. The steep rock face is alive with gulls, guillemots and fulmars perched precariously with their chicks on impossible little ledges. We step onto a pier that was constructed somewhere above the monks original landing place. The walled path winds its way around the east and south of the island as we join the queue of people making their way around Cross Cove and towards the beginning of our ascent up the south steps. The Cove is covered in part to protect people from falling rock. A guide stationed below the steps offers a short history of the island. I think about the ascent and look up for reassurance. There isn’t any. How could those industrious monks, laden with tools, food and shelter climb from one perilous ledge to another with just their faith to guide them? Their inspiration was to climb closer to God, mine is just to survive.

We begin the ascent. The monks built these steps, all 618 of them, only after clambering up slippery rock in medieval footwear. At the first level I have to stop and take a picture of a weathered and worn rock called the Wailing Woman, so called by one of the lighthouse keepers. The views across to Little Skellig, the Kerry mainland and on to West Cork are spectacular. On we go, plodding upwards, not daring to look down the vertical side and taking it in turns to go on the inside or outside as we pass people coming down. Two people have been killed in the past ten years and both at the same spot. At least it’s not raining. We make it to the saddle and take time to inspect the final route up a perilous looking series of steps. To our left a ribbon of even more hazardous steps lead to the Hermitage and the out-of-bounds south peak. My head is crammed with doom-laden adjectives screaming to get out.

*Christ’s Saddle from the upper level (note the steps opposite leading to the Hermitage on the South Peak)*

We finally make it to the top after one last demanding push. For some absurd and melodramatic reason I think of John Bunyan’s Christian. Perhaps every visitor is a pilgrim in their own right: adventure, history, birdlife, Star Wars or because Skellig Michael is on a bucket list. Whatever the reason, nothing can prepare you for this monumental achievement. Here sits a monastery on a nest site atop a piece of rock protruding from the Atlantic Ocean. I think of the Burj Khalifa and wonder if this is all we have achieved in 1300 years.

The signature buildings of Skellig Michael are clocháins, commonly known as beehive huts. Corbeled roofs resist the worst of Atlantic storms, keeping the interior dry even today. The Large Oratory presiding over the monks’ graveyard has walls almost 4ft thick and an inverted boat-shaped roof. Two gardens, lower and upper, are testament to the importance of vegetables in the monks’ survival. They had access to fish, seasonal seabirds and eggs which were vital in providing protein to their diet.

*Clocháns - dry-stone huts with a corbel roofs*

Relentless Atlantic storms circled the monastery walls like the Trumpets of Jericho. Time and again the monks rebuilt. Even after they departed for the mainland, successive generations of monks and pilgrims were required to carry out essential reconstruction work. Remedial work was undertaken in the 19th Century by the lighthouse-builders. They occupied some of the structures. So too the lighthouse-keepers, who used the large oratory as a church. Major work, however, was initiated by the Office of Public Works in 1978, and the largely intact monastery we see today is thanks to substantial excavation and restorative work carried out between 1986 and 2010. In fact, due to earth movement and pressure on retaining walls, the terraces would probably have collapsed altogether without some form of intervention. This occurred in the 19th Century when the south wall of the inner chamber collapsed on top of the cell once occupied by the lighthouse-builders (see Eastern end of lower monks’ garden photo).

*The monk's graveyard in front of the Large Oratory*

We sit down in the upper-garden to eat our lunch. This place presents more questions than answers, even with the available canon of academic literature. I came here believing the radius of the monks’ world had shrunk to the circumference of a small rock in the Atlantic Ocean. Now I’m standing on top of their world, where to the east they could watch the sun rising above the mountains of Kerry, and to the west the skies so red it must have looked as if a fire raged on the other side of the world. Of course not all views were so welcome, especially when the dreaded Norsemen arrived in the wake of their reputation. Two Viking raids are recorded: the first, 821, resulted in the abduction of the abbot, Etgal. According to the Annals of Inisfallen, he died of starvation three years later.

More than 500 years after they first settled on Skellig the monks began to spend winter months on the mainland. This was partly due to the Synod of Ráth Breasail which oversaw a transition from a monastic to a diocesan parish-based church. The 1100’s also saw an invasion of powerful Continental monastic orders, such as the Cistercians and Benedictines (the former had a significant influence on Ireland), which threatened to overwhelm non-episcopal monasteries. The pressure mounted when the Normans followed in the 12th Century: part of Henry 11s justification for invasion was the reputed Papal Laudabiliter which was designed to bring the Irish Church into line with Rome’s Gregorian Reforms. Many questions remain regarding the timeline of the final transition to the priory at Ballinekelligs, but considering the Augustinians arrived with Henry 11 in 1172 and did not establish their first foundation in Dublin until 1280, it’s unlikely to have been much before the 14th Century. The monks eventually merged with the Augustinian’s and continued to use Skellig Michael for pilgrimage and retreat in the summer months. It remained in their hands until the 16th Century.

It’s time to make our way down and rendezvous with our ferry. The decent is more dangerous than the ascent and not helped by having to look down. I have to pause every now and again to take pictures of Puffins loitering about outside their burrows. Though the privilege of being here is overwhelming, it’s still a relief to make it down the final few steps and strike out along the path to Blind Man’s Cove. The island has taken hold of me and I know it will never let go. On the way out I tried to imagine what the monks saw when they too made the first journey to this wilderness beyond the edge of civilisation. In that respect it hasn’t changed, but in building a monastery for the glorification of God, they also created a shrine to the sheer blood-mindedness of human endeavour. And they were armed with nothing but faith, courage and tenacity. It’s difficult to step off the island not knowing if you’ll ever come back. I know I will.

“But for the magic that takes you out, far out of this time and this world, there is Skellig Michael ten miles off Kerry coast, shooting straight up seven hundred feet sheer out of the Atlantic. Whoever has not stood in the graveyard and their beehive oratory does not know Ireland through and through.” George Bernard Shaw

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