A few miles west of Kerry, Ireland's most South Western county, a forbidding fang of rock juts into the sky. No one dwells there now, but it was once home to an austere monastic community, whose stone beehive huts clustered on a plateau below the summit. It was here that men [no women] sought refuge to find God in nature and solitude.
Liminality
An important concept for Celtic Christians was liminality. A liminal place was a location where two worlds met. Liminal places could be the edge of water and land, wells and springs, caves. mountain tops and cliff edges. The Celts [not only Christian ones] believed that at such liminal places the veil between worlds was thinner than normal, and the other world was more contactable. Skellig Michael, a sharp peak jutting out into the sea, was such a liminal place; and it was in the west. for the ancient Celtic peoples of the British Isles the west was sacred. So the monks stood on the edge of the ocean, between sky and sea,looking West to the mysterious lands beyond the sunset, trying to attain contact with heaven.
Celtic monks sought out such places. Part of their tradition was to set off in boats and find an island. This they called a desert in memory of the Egyptian desert fathers who sought God in the wilderness. Egyptian Christianity had a deep and profound influence upon Ireland, even before Patrick's arrival, and much of this needs to be explored more deeply by archaeologists. Records are few and far between.
The Outline of the Island
Access is not easy, and you can only land at the tiny harbour if the wind is favourable. On my last attempt I was unsuccessful because of weather conditions. Do not take your own boat, as the tides and currents are such that access is better achieved through being ferried by boatmen with expert local knowledge. A flight of several hundred steps [not for those with vertigo] takes you to the enclosure. Here several beehive huts made of corbelled stones impress visitors. Corbelled stones are laid so that the higher stones slightly overlap the lower ones and taper up to a point. It was a building technique that originated in the stone age and can still be seen in some tombs across the British Isles. They are so well contructed that they have lasted for centuries, despite all that the weather could throw at them. However,rabbits introduced by lighthouse keepers in the nineteenth century are a threat because they undermine some of the structures.
Evidence of a small walled garden can be found. This is near the monastery and separated from the sea by a stone wall which gives it some protection from the wind and created a micro-climate. Here these ascetics grew their meagre vegetable diet. You will possibly find silverweed still growing there. This is common in Celtic monastic sites. It is a low-growing plant that was widely used in Ireland, Scotland and Wales before the advent of the potato displaced it. Its root provides a high carbohydrate content.
On the peak above the monastery site there is the hermitage, which was used only by monks who needed some retreat time. Access is possible. but only by guide. There have been cases of visitors becoming trapped and needing to be rescued. Do not ascend unguided.
History of Skellig Michael
The exact date at which the island monastery was established is unknown. It probably began in the late sixth century. However, it flourished with its small community, but began to suffer during the appalling Viking raids on Ireland. It was attacked at least once and one at least of its abbots and some monks were murdered. The end of Skellig Michael was nothing to do with religious persecution. In the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century the climate worsened and the storms, always bad on the west coast or Ireland, were so severe that Skellig Michael became barely habitable. The monks evacuated and established a monastery at Ballinskellig on the mainland, which lasted until the vandalism of the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry the Eighth. Skellig Michael remained as a ruin, a treasure testifying to the wonderful and tragic history of the Irish church and its monks.
Bibliography
Sun Dancing, Geoffrey Moorhouse, Weidenfield and Nicholson, London, 1997. This book is specifically about Skellig Michael.
The Sun and the Cross, Jacob Streik, Floris Books, 1993 [English edition.]
Shoots Out of Eden, Francis Beswick, Arima Publishing, 2007. This book gives ideas on monastic gardens.
Francis Beswick - Religion, history and horticulture are my three great interests and I spend much of my time on them.
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