Donal Hickey: Saving Skellig Michael — a global project to safeguard significant sites
Location of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Skellig Michael is the most spectacular of all the early medieval island monastic sites. The monastery consists of six beehive huts, and is situated almost at the summit of the 230-metre-high rock. It became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996 and is one of Europe's better-known but least accessible monasteries. Picture: Valerie O’Sullivan
A clear, sunny day in October and the Skellig rocks rise like giant pyramids from the Atlantic, off the south Kerry coast. The sea is calm, perhaps deceptively so, with only a slight swell lapping the shore.
But winter is nearly here and conditions will change. The mighty rocks will be battered by wind and wave. Thoughts turn to the old monastery on Skellig Michael — a Unesco world heritage site and the most famous of the rocks.
Nowadays primarily known to some as the location of a Star Wars film, it has been a place of prayer, pilgrimage, and penance since the first monks scaled the cliffs as far back as the 6th century.
Managed by the Office of Public Works (OPW), Skellig Michael is part of a new, global project to safeguard culturally significant sites from increased threats due to climate change. Only 10 sites have been chosen, including some in the Philippines, Bangladesh and Cambodia, for the project funded by National Geographic and Manulife.
Sitting on a clifftop commanding awesome views, 180 metres above sea level, the well-preserved monastic area on Skellig Michael is reached by hundreds of stone steps. As a fairly inaccessible place, 12 kilometres from shore, it was where holy men found refuge from the hurly-burly of the world and felt closer to Heaven.
To this day, some people sense an aura of spirituality there. I have visited twice and the place has something other-worldly and enchanting about it. And there’s a non-stop chorus of cries of seabirds which form colonies of international stature.
The late Ballinskelligs writer, Michael Kirby, spent a life-time fishing in the seas around the great rock and often went ashore there. He described the old monastery as a masterpiece of its time and an inspiration of wonder.
An outstanding example of an early Christian settlement, it features two oratories, a cemetery, stone crosses, six beehive cells, where the monks lived, a medieval church and a hermitage.
As Kirby noted: “They (monks) built walls of dry stone on the edge of the over-hanging clff-face, which have stood the test of centuries. Theirs was, undoubtedly, a labour of love. They were craftsmen whose ancestors emerged from the Stone Age."
A conservation programme has been underway since the 1970s by the OPW and National Monuments Service, largely focused on protecting the monastery and the safety of the thousands of visitors taken there by local boat operators between May and October.
The latest climate change project, meanwhile, will tap into experience gained from such sites internationally and the expertise of other heritage partners around the world. The plan is to work with the local community.
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