Sacred Ireland by Jon Michael Riley Ireland1 | Page 12

The Christian Era

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Above: Boats from Portmagee Harbor near Skellig Michael. The monastic settlement of clocháns (stone beehive huts) is visible to the left
of the summit of the 700 ft. high island.
Opposite: One of the precarious stone stairways not open to the public.

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Pages 14-15: The monastic site near the top of the east summit. In the foreground are stone crosses marking monks’
graves. The large clochan on the left is the oratory, or chapel.
The others are dwellings.

here is no better place to begin examining the
Christian era than Skellig Michael. Called by
one historian the Ankgor Wat of early Irish
monasticism, this curious monastery is perched on a small
stone terrace near the top of a
pointed rock island rising sharply,
and in some places, vertically,
from the Atlantic, eight miles
off the west coast of County
Kerry. Historians believe it was
the furthest, most remote Irish
monastic outpost, active for about
500 years, begun in the 8th century
and finally abandoned in the 13th
century after many destructive
Viking raids.
Skellig Michael (St.
Michael’s Rock) is not easy to access. I tried three times
before and because of dreadful weather and huge seas,
boats stayed in port. On the fourth try I found warm sunny
weather and calm seas, so the 90-minute cruise out to the
Skelligs was impressive and exhilarating.
All this makes one mindful of what the monks
went through in order to live a basic subsistence life.
How they lived on Skellig Michael has been a subject
of study for many years. It is clear the monks were
dedicated to survival and consequently built an artful stone
encampment of clochans and oratories, a monastery of

corbelled stone igloos or beehive huts. They also terraced
the small amount of land available, built precipitous stone
steps down hundreds of feet to several of the island’s
shadowy coves, carved crosses and worked stone for walls
and pathways.
Standing among them, I looked out to a sea that
would have represented to the early monks both the outer
edge of the known flat world and the beginning of the great
unknown where monsters dwelled. It is inconceivable how
they managed to find and carve out such a place, reached
only by small boats and over 600
wide stone steps. Moreover, one
cannot help but feel the majesty of
the setting and awe of the bravery
and determination of those early
monks.
Like the plentiful prehistoric
sites, Christian era sites abound.
From the much-visited Christ
Church Cathedral, dating from 1172
AD, in the middle of Dublin, and
the 6th century monastic community
of Glendalough just to the south, to
the most remote monastic outpost of Skellig Michael, one
can find hundreds of abbeys, monasteries, round towers,
high crosses, plain or elaborate churches with remarkable
doorways, arched windows and animated stonework.
It is clear that the early church, those following St.
Patrick who started it all, were well aware of the indigenous
megalithic past and tried to codify or capture that numinous
spiritual quality whenever possible. There are notable
examples of megalithic stones and holy wells that were
inscribed with crosses and other Christian iconography, thus
Christianizing them.
Cont. p. 18
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