This dramatic island off the coast of Ireland was once a place for monks to remove themselves from the world.
Skellig Michael monastery (Ireland), 6th–13th centuries (most of the stone construction dates to 8th–11th centuries)
Note: Skellig Michael has become famous more recently because of its appearance in Star Wars movies.
Additional resources
Skellig Michael on UNESCO’s World Heritage list
[0:00] [music]
Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank: [0:05] I’ve just climbed down more than 600 stairs from the top of the rocky island known as Skellig Michael in Southwestern Ireland. I had to take a 90-minute, bumpy boat ride to get here, and then I had to climb those 600 stairs, originally built by the monks who came here to get away from the world.
[0:25] This is one of the remotest monasteries, and it also happens to be a puffin sanctuary, and because it’s so windy, I’m going to head back on another 90-minute, bumpy boat ride to get back to Port McGee, Ireland, to talk more about the Monastery of Skellig Michael.
Dr. Steven Zucker: [0:42] Skellig Michael is the most dramatic landscape imaginable, and the most inhospitable.
Dr. Kilroy-Ewbank: [0:48] Half of the year, you can’t even go out on a boat to Skellig Michael. To make this journey — in some ways to make this pilgrimage — out to Skellig Michael reminds you of what the original monks who came here were trying to do, and that was to remove themselves from the world.
[1:05] Once you make the climb up the stairs, you reach the top of one of the peaks and you see a small monastic community.
Dr. Zucker: [1:14] It’s extraordinary. The architecture is largely intact, even though it dates to at least the 8th century. Some believe that the community was founded much earlier, but we have archaeological evidence that makes us fairly confident that these buildings were in place by the 7th century.
[1:30] There are actually records that date to the 8th century that clearly state that monks were living on Skellig Michael.
Dr. Kilroy-Ewbank: [1:36] We think the earlier structures were made of wood and they no longer survive, as is common in a lot of places in Ireland. Starting in the 6th century, you have this great monastic age where people are establishing monastic communities across the landscape.
[1:50] This group of monks are ascetics. They want to be removed from the world. They are modeling themselves off of anchorites, people in, say, Egypt who are similarly removing themselves from the world and escaping to the desert. But here, there’s no sand deserts, but you do have the ability to cross the ocean, more than seven kilometers, to a sheer rocky outcropping.
Dr. Zucker: [2:14] The ocean becomes like a desert to separate this hermit community from mainland Ireland. But it’s not just separation that’s at issue here. It is a kind of physical suffering.
Dr. Kilroy-Ewbank: [2:25] Which would have been one of the goals of a monk who is living this hermetic existence, would have been to model themselves off of Christ, to live in this state of penance, here, marked by harsh conditions. Many of the monks probably did not eat much.
[2:42] When I was there, you can see how hard it would be to grow things in that climate.
Dr. Zucker: [2:46] There’s only one small patch of arable land, in a small saddle between the two peaks, that’s known as the “Saddle of Christ.” Beyond that, the monks would have survived on the birds and the fish.
Dr. Kilroy-Ewbank: [2:57] When you enter into the community, you bend down to walk through a small door, and you see terraced walls, then you come upon this small community, which is six beehive structures, a small cemetery, a church that was built in the later 11th to 12th century.
[3:17] And then beyond that, there are also two oratories or houses for prayer. One that’s near the beehive structures and one that’s a little bit beyond, which is also where the toilet would have been .
Dr. Zucker: [3:27] These beehive structures are dark. When you enter, it takes some time for your eyes to adjust. When they do, you can see the architectural method that was used to construct them and that has kept them up for so long. These are, in a sense, corbel domes.
[3:40] This is an ancient way of enclosing an interior space without an interior support. It is known as corbel arch, or in this case, a corbel dome. Flat stones are laid atop each other, each projecting slightly further out until they reach the center and are self-supporting.
Dr. Kilroy-Ewbank: [3:56] When I passed into the doorway and walked into the room, and my eyes had still not adjusted, I was in there looking for cubbies. The monks were able to use the corbelling to construct deep cubbies. As I was looking, I had puffins very angry with me that were living inside of the beehive structure.
[4:14] From the outside, these beehive structures are circular. But when you go inside, they’re square or rectangular. They’re still dry even to this day. The one known as Cell A is bigger than the other beehive structures. We think this was a communal area where the monks would gather. High above the entrance, barely noticeable, is a white quartz cross that has been embedded into the exterior.
[4:39] In the course of the life of Skellig Michael, we know that it was subject to raids from the Vikings. This harmed the community, but it continued to survive. While I was there, I was reminded of the challenges of the weather. It went from being overcast and windy, to being sunny and lightly windy, to being very windy with lots of mist, all in the course of two hours.
Dr. Zucker: [5:01] Historians believe that weather played a role in the eventual abandonment of Skellig Michael. There were changes to monastic life that may have played a role and there may have been other causes. We think that the island simply became impossible for human habitation.
Dr. Kilroy-Ewbank: [5:14] And the monks left. They relocated back to the mainland and constructed a monastery there. Sometime in the medieval period, pilgrims started coming here. Even after monks left, pilgrims were still making the journey to get to Skellig Michael because it had significance for people in Ireland.
Dr. Zucker: [5:32] Even now, one could consider the tourists that are able to visit the island as a kind of pilgrimage.
Dr. Kilroy-Ewbank: [5:38] It has also become very popular more recently because it has appeared in the Star Wars movies.
Dr. Zucker: [5:44] It really is Hollywood being inspired by true history. Luke Skywalker becomes a hermit. He goes to this remote planet, very much the way that in the 7th and 8th centuries intensely religious monks went to Skellig Michael.
[5:57] [music]
