Skellig Michael & Dingle Peninsula, Kerry, Ireland
Imagine one of the wildest coasts on the outermost edge of Europe. Imagine seas torn up by powerful tides and merciless gales. Imagine a jagged rock pinnacle rising like a shark's tooth out of those seas, with nothing but 10 miles of unforgiving ocean between it and the mainland. Then imagine you are cast away there and must endure a lifetime within its confines, a world over 700' high but barely 700' long. Between a rock and a hard place? No- upon a bare rock which is a brutally hard place. This is Skellig Michael off the coast of Kerry. Christian monks landed here in the 6th century and occupied it continuously for six centuries beyond. We landed just after dawn and toiled like the pilgrims of yore up six hundred sandstone steps. This is the closest you will come to finding the legendary Stairway to Heaven. For in six beautiful beehive huts perched on the giddy heights of the island, monks lived, prayed and languished in utter isolation. It is impossible to imagine their winter. But summer brought its own miracles: sea pinks bloom, blowsy white flowers of scurvy grass scent the air, and thousands of puffins, shearwaters and storm-petrels return to ancestral burrows to breed. In the stone crevices, the hut walls, even in the stone staircase, we heard the faint peeping of baby petrels. They must have made endearing companions (and tempting fodder) for the monks, starved for company (and food). And when the birds left in September, the monks remained, with nothing but their faith to sustain them through yet another bleak winter. The word "unique" is carelessly overused; I even hear people talking about things being "very unique" or even "slightly unique". Save it for a place like this: Skellig Michael is special.
The sun blazed down.We saw a sunfish! We passed the black and white fairy castle of Little Skellig, with its own whirling blizzard of 27,000 pairs of gannets. Then we anchored in the roads outside Dingle, were welcomed by the faithful Fungie, Dingle's bottlenose dolphin, and went ashore to explore the wild headlands of Kerry. The Blasket centre, the South Pole Inn at Anascaul, black pints of Guinness and the wild Irish music in Murphy's all piled on top of a day of bright, burning images. But one shape eclipses all others, the incomparable, unforgettable, incontrovertibly unique rock citadel rising from the Atlantic: the island of Skellig Michael.
Imagine one of the wildest coasts on the outermost edge of Europe. Imagine seas torn up by powerful tides and merciless gales. Imagine a jagged rock pinnacle rising like a shark's tooth out of those seas, with nothing but 10 miles of unforgiving ocean between it and the mainland. Then imagine you are cast away there and must endure a lifetime within its confines, a world over 700' high but barely 700' long. Between a rock and a hard place? No- upon a bare rock which is a brutally hard place. This is Skellig Michael off the coast of Kerry. Christian monks landed here in the 6th century and occupied it continuously for six centuries beyond. We landed just after dawn and toiled like the pilgrims of yore up six hundred sandstone steps. This is the closest you will come to finding the legendary Stairway to Heaven. For in six beautiful beehive huts perched on the giddy heights of the island, monks lived, prayed and languished in utter isolation. It is impossible to imagine their winter. But summer brought its own miracles: sea pinks bloom, blowsy white flowers of scurvy grass scent the air, and thousands of puffins, shearwaters and storm-petrels return to ancestral burrows to breed. In the stone crevices, the hut walls, even in the stone staircase, we heard the faint peeping of baby petrels. They must have made endearing companions (and tempting fodder) for the monks, starved for company (and food). And when the birds left in September, the monks remained, with nothing but their faith to sustain them through yet another bleak winter. The word "unique" is carelessly overused; I even hear people talking about things being "very unique" or even "slightly unique". Save it for a place like this: Skellig Michael is special.
The sun blazed down.We saw a sunfish! We passed the black and white fairy castle of Little Skellig, with its own whirling blizzard of 27,000 pairs of gannets. Then we anchored in the roads outside Dingle, were welcomed by the faithful Fungie, Dingle's bottlenose dolphin, and went ashore to explore the wild headlands of Kerry. The Blasket centre, the South Pole Inn at Anascaul, black pints of Guinness and the wild Irish music in Murphy's all piled on top of a day of bright, burning images. But one shape eclipses all others, the incomparable, unforgettable, incontrovertibly unique rock citadel rising from the Atlantic: the island of Skellig Michael.
