Kerry Landscapes
The Skelligs
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The Skellig rocks, which are located 12kms off the Ring of Kerry, Ireland, are of such an importance that they have been made a World Heritage Site.
George Bernard Shaw the famous Irish dramatist wrote:
"But for the magic that takes you out far out of this time and this world, there is Skellig Michel ten miles off the Kerry coast, shooting straight up seven hundred feet sheer out of the Atlantic.
Whoever has not stood in the grave-yard on the summit of that cliff among the beehive dwellings and beehive oratory does not know Ireland through and through ".
The Skelligs have a long and colourful history despite their remoteness on the western edge of Europe.
As early as 490AD Duach, King of west Munster, took refuge at the Skelligs rock when pursued by Aengus, King of Carhel.
With the introduction of christianity to Ireland in came the founding of the monastery on the rock in the 6th century by St. Fionan. The monastery, which still stand to this day on the island, consisted of a small enclosure of stone huts and oratories.
Although isolated the Skelligs and its monks did not escape being attacked by the vikings and in 795ad, the Skelligs came under attack from Scandinavia. In 812AD they took Eitgal, Abbot of Skelligs and starved him to death. However,in spite of these attacks, the monastic community continued to live on the Skelligs and in 860AD some rebuilding was done.
The Skelligs Micheal (the bigger of the two islands) was a place of pilgrimage and penance for many years.In the 16th century it was a prime place of public penance.Two centuries later pilgrims were coming from all over Europe and Ireland at Easter-time to say the stations of the cross before finally kissing a stone carving over-hanging the sea at the 'Needles Eye'.
Location: Skelligs, Co.Kerry
Photographer: Mark Callanan
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