The Remote Monastery of Skellig Michael

Skellig Michael (which translates as 'Rock of Michael') is a small and rugged island off the coast of County Kerry, Ireland, rising 700 feet out of the Atlantic Ocean. Its only inhabitants were a small community of Celtic monks, who lived there for six hundred years, from 588 CE until the 12th century. It is thought that only a dozen monks lived on the rock at any one time.

Early Christians laid store on a simple, contemplative and spartan way of life. Early Ethiopian saints such as St Anthony (c. 251-356 CE) withdrew to live in solitude in the desert. Antonian eremitic monasticism, as it is known, is still practiced by some devouts today. In the following centuries, St Pachomius, St Basil and St Benedict pioneered a system where whole groups of monks withdrew to places where temptations were few and survival difficult. This model was adopted by many monastic communities in North Africa and Europe, and inspired the monks of Skellig Michael.

Ancient Ruins

The terrain of the island is forbidding. Steep and craggy, it even lacked level ground, and so the monks made terraces of dry stone to build on. As the investigators Horne, Marshall and Rourke put it, they "could have been built only by men who believed that every stone they laid brought them one step closer to God". The remains of various structures can still be seen today.

Three stairways on different points of the island led from sea level to the upper reaches. The monks lived in beehive-shaped huts known as 'clochans', perched precariously above a sheer cliff face. Amongst the remains on the same terrace are the remains of two oratories, and a number of leachts. These are small stone structures, common in mediaeval sites, that may have served as altars or as grave markers.

The monk's most astonishing accomplishment was their hermitage, for solitary penitence. Perched on top of the South Peak, it could only be reached by a terrifying climb along narrow paths above a sheer drop. Access required negotiating a chimney known as 'The Needle's Eye'. The stone for the hermitage terrace and its buildings, would all have had to be laboriously hauled along this route.

Hardship and Abandonment

The self-denial and hardship of the monks' existence are almost unimaginable today. The environment was hostile, the weather inclement and food scarce. In the ninth century, the monks' existence was threatened by Viking raids. In 824 a monk named Etgal was taken by the invaders and died as their prisoner. Yet the settlement endured for another three centuries. The monks moved to a mainland monastery in the twelfth century, perhaps because the climate declined even further.

Place of pilgrimage

Skellig Michael was visited by pilgrims from the sixteenth century onward and even today attracts visitors seeking a spiritual experience. Today the island is a nature reserve and haven for seabirds. Access has been restricted to protect the structures, but subject to good weather, several tour operators run boat trips from the mainland.

Sources

The Forgotten Hermitage of Skellig Michael. Walter Horn, Jenny White Marshall and Grellan Rourke. 1990. University of California Press. www.escholarship.org/editions

History of the Diocese of Kerry: Skellig Michael. www.dioceseofkerry.ie/pages/heritage/scelig.htm