Skellig Michael
We began our day on the wild west side of Ireland. The Skellig Islands are jagged fangs that erupt from the maw of the Atlantic. Tempest-lashed in winter, they are Europe’s last outpost before the open sea. Yet the Skelligs brim with life. Little Skellig is white with nesting gannets. We approached the island and found the birds organized in tidy rows, each nest a beak’s reach from the next. Gannets filled the sky, soaring past us like animated lanceheads. We approached closely enough to hear the amalgamated clamor of birds by the thousand-score.
Great Skellig is equally crowded, though in a less conspicuous way. Its cliffs are lined with guillemots, and its grassy slopes are perforated by thousands of puffin burrows. Astonishingly, Great Skellig was home to humans for perhaps six hundred years. Monks, hoping to get nearer to God, adjourned to this isolated speck and cut steps in the living rock to reach its apex; where they built domed meditation cells. We saw the rounded forms of these ancient buildings crowning the land, and the tenuous winding steps lacing summit to strand.
Sea conditions, though not horrid, were significant enough to give us an inkling of the monks’ winter isolation. Ocean swell was rolling straight into Dingle Bay, our afternoon’s anchorage, so, with a certain nimbleness, the ship delivered us to nearby Smerwick Harbour, where we took Zodiacs ashore.
Our first stop on the Dingle Peninsula was the Church of Kilmalkedar, which dates to the Sixth Century. At the ruined church are several stones patterned with ancient linear writing. Over the centuries, these stones have probably had different meanings and functions. One, punctured near its top as if a six-foot needle, is now a “trothing-stone”, where couples touch fingers through the gap as a sign of commitment.
Some of us then took a quick detour to the South Pole! This famous geographical landmark is actually a pub, and is generally acknowledged to be more hospitable than the other spot with the same name. The South Pole was established by the famed explorer Tom Crean, and is something of a site of pilgrimage to Antarctic aficionados. We gathered round a variety of Irish beverages and raised them in honor of Crean and the continent that drew him.
With all of this history under our belts, we spent some time celebrating the Irish culture of today. We gathered in Murphy’s Pub in the center of Dingle. Stouts and coffees in hand, we listened to local traditional music and joined in with the singing.
Ireland’s culture is deep and aged, but is also boisterous and alive. It was fun to taste the flavors of Ireland at its freshest and most ancient.
We began our day on the wild west side of Ireland. The Skellig Islands are jagged fangs that erupt from the maw of the Atlantic. Tempest-lashed in winter, they are Europe’s last outpost before the open sea. Yet the Skelligs brim with life. Little Skellig is white with nesting gannets. We approached the island and found the birds organized in tidy rows, each nest a beak’s reach from the next. Gannets filled the sky, soaring past us like animated lanceheads. We approached closely enough to hear the amalgamated clamor of birds by the thousand-score.
Great Skellig is equally crowded, though in a less conspicuous way. Its cliffs are lined with guillemots, and its grassy slopes are perforated by thousands of puffin burrows. Astonishingly, Great Skellig was home to humans for perhaps six hundred years. Monks, hoping to get nearer to God, adjourned to this isolated speck and cut steps in the living rock to reach its apex; where they built domed meditation cells. We saw the rounded forms of these ancient buildings crowning the land, and the tenuous winding steps lacing summit to strand.
Sea conditions, though not horrid, were significant enough to give us an inkling of the monks’ winter isolation. Ocean swell was rolling straight into Dingle Bay, our afternoon’s anchorage, so, with a certain nimbleness, the ship delivered us to nearby Smerwick Harbour, where we took Zodiacs ashore.
Our first stop on the Dingle Peninsula was the Church of Kilmalkedar, which dates to the Sixth Century. At the ruined church are several stones patterned with ancient linear writing. Over the centuries, these stones have probably had different meanings and functions. One, punctured near its top as if a six-foot needle, is now a “trothing-stone”, where couples touch fingers through the gap as a sign of commitment.
Some of us then took a quick detour to the South Pole! This famous geographical landmark is actually a pub, and is generally acknowledged to be more hospitable than the other spot with the same name. The South Pole was established by the famed explorer Tom Crean, and is something of a site of pilgrimage to Antarctic aficionados. We gathered round a variety of Irish beverages and raised them in honor of Crean and the continent that drew him.
With all of this history under our belts, we spent some time celebrating the Irish culture of today. We gathered in Murphy’s Pub in the center of Dingle. Stouts and coffees in hand, we listened to local traditional music and joined in with the singing.
Ireland’s culture is deep and aged, but is also boisterous and alive. It was fun to taste the flavors of Ireland at its freshest and most ancient.
