One thing’s for sure: holy men and women in Early Christian
Ireland didn’t shy away from a challenge. From shards of rock in
the Atlantic Ocean to valleys hidden deep in the Wicklow
Mountains, their settlements were nothing if not spectacular
Back then, if your mission was to serve and worship God, you had
two options. The first was to dedicate your life to helping
others in the community, where the poor – most people on the
island – could easily seek you out. The second, worshipping God
in isolation, was seen by some as purer... but, boy, was it
austere. Not to mention, perilous. In utter isolation Nowhere
illustrates this more than Skellig Michael on the Skellig
Islands. Punching out of the Atlantic Ocean some 13km off the
Kerry coast, this merciless shard of rock was chosen as home by
an intrepid band of religious men around the 8th century.
Building beehive huts on ledges 700 feet above saw-tooth rocks,
the miracle is not that the monks managed to settle here, but
that their followers remained until clima