December 6, 2017 • 29 mins
This small island off the west coast of Ireland recently became a film star, but Skellig Michael has a rich history all its own. An ancient monastery, lighthouses and the island's status as a bird sanctuary all make up its story.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to steph you missed in history class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Frying and I'm Trac B. Wilson. Uh. If
you are a Star Wars fan, and frankly even if
you're not, you have probably seen scenes of Luke Skywalker
(00:23):
in The Force Awakens and in promotional materials for The
Last Jedi, where he and eventually Ray are standing on
an island with ancient looking structures on it that is
a real island that's not a set. And those structures
are also not sets that were built for the film.
They are part of a real thing that is ancient.
Skellic Michael, the island where those scenes were shot is
(00:45):
a historic site with a fascinating history all its own.
It's also got kind of a nice juxtaposition because a
big chunk of its history is is much older, and
then there's a newer history of some of them more
modern things that have been built on the island. Um. So,
since I have Star Wars rabies and I can barely
manage to contain myself while I wait for the Last
Jedia premiere, uh, and because this really is a legitimately
(01:08):
very very interesting historical site. I thought it might be
fun to delve into this location in its rich history
for the podcast. Yeah, if you were concerned, based on
the number of times that we said the last Jedi,
we're not going to be talking about anything in the
movie at all on the island at all. That's pretty
much all the Star Wars talk except a story about
(01:29):
filming at the end, and even that has nothing to
do so we're not going to spoil anyone or anything
related there no Star Wars. You would have had to
have not gone to see the Fourth Awakens yet for
that to have been a spoiler, which I don't know.
Maybe we didn't, but at this point, if you haven't
gone to see the Force Awakens, then I think you
(01:50):
would have to have been in media blackout because it's
appeared on so many like magazine covers, television, tromos um.
You know, interview us are often inter cut if you
see them on television with shots of this island. So
it's I don't think we're giving anything away. I feel
confident that we have skirted any well. I think if
(02:13):
you have not yet seen Force Awakens, you probably don't
care about Star Wars spoilers. Right, none of which are
in here anyway. We are literally just talking about the
history of this. I want to be very clear, Okay.
Skelling Michael is one of two islands that make up
the Skellic Islands. The word skelling derives from the Irish
(02:35):
word for steep rock. And then the other island is
the smaller one of the two. It's called Little Island
and it's closed to visitors. Sometimes we'll also see you
skelling Michael called Great Skelling yep. Also you'll see it
spelled in various different ways. We're going with kind of
the most basic, uh, globally facing spelling that gets used
(02:55):
a lot. It's probably the americanized spelling. That's just the
scoop on that. If you see it spelled a different way,
that's why. And Skelling Michael is uh seven miles that's
eleven point six kilometers west of the edge of Ireland's
Eva Peninsula in County Kerry, and the highest elevation of
the island is seven hundred and fifteen feet that's about
(03:15):
two hundred and eighteen meters. And this island is tiny.
It is less than a square mile in area. So
if you do hectares. That's nine hectares. The Minister for
Art Heritage and the Geltacht owned Skelling Michael on behalf
of the Irish people. And there's also a lighthouse and
support buildings for the lighthouse on the southern end of
(03:36):
the island, as well as a helipad. And this portion
of the island falls outside of the ownership arrangement mentioned above.
We'll get a little bit more into that in a bit.
The geological makeup of Skelling Michael is what's called Old
Red sandstone, sedimentary layers of rock deposited somewhere between three
hundred sixty and three hundred seventy four million years ago
during the Devonian period, when Ireland was part of a
(03:58):
much larger continent. It's the westernmost European instance of Devonian sandstone,
which can be found throughout Britain and Ireland, Scandinavia and Greenland.
It's also in portions of Canada. Skelling Michael also has
to twin peaks with a valley in the middle which
has come to me known as Christ's Saddle Uh and
(04:20):
that hellapad that we mentioned briefly is for emergencies only.
That's not a standard way to get on and off
the island or special cases um So from the middle
of May to September, visitors may travel to Skelling Michael,
but only by boat and it is for davisits exclusively
and I should also mention that sometimes if they have
had damage in the winter, they will shorten that window
(04:40):
that visitors can come. Tourists also cannot stay overnight on
the island and there are no amenities. Basically, you you
go for a little while and you get back on
the boat and you leave. Uh. The island is also
designated a statutory nature reserve, so no animal visitors are
allowed and no trash can be left behind the The
animals that most commonly benefit from the islands reserve status
(05:03):
are birds. Seabirds often nest there during their respective breeding seasons.
Skellic Michael is considered one of the most important breeding
grounds for birds in Ireland, and for some species it's
one of the most important places in the world. The
storm Petrol and makes Sheerwater have some of their largest
breeding groups on the island, and it's also home to
puffins which I love and kitty Wake among others. Paragram
(05:28):
falcons also nest there although not every year, and there
are a few mammals on the island as well, including
gray seals, house mice, and rabbits. Also of interest in
terms of its natural makeup is the lichen that grows
on Skelling Michael. There are actually one hundred and twenty
eight different species of lichen found on this tiny rocky island,
(05:50):
and to like in a colas fungi, that's enough to
classify it as a nationally important site for lichen growth
based on a conservation study that was conducted in two
thousand nine. To get to more of the human made structures,
Skelling Michael is also home to a monastery that was
built hundreds of years ago, and we're going to get
(06:11):
into the history of that in more detailed descriptions of
the monastery and just a bit but at first. But
first we're going to talk about how it exists there today.
The settlement has two different segments, and the first is
the monastery itself, which is built on the islands east side,
high up on sloping areas of rock. The monastery has
(06:31):
three access points, all of which involve navigating a lot
of steps. A lot of steps, like they actually say
in the visit any of the visitors stuff that you
may read, like the visitors advisories like please don't come
if you're not ready to take on like six hundred steps,
because it is vigorous work and it's not there's not
(06:52):
an easy way up. There's like I said, there are
no amenities, there's no elevator, there are no chair lifts.
You have to handle it yourself. And those steps are
really amazing because they're cut from the rock of the island,
from the landing point where you would first step foot
on the island up to the highest point where water
can possibly reach, and then above that height the steps continue,
but from then on they're made of dry stone masonry.
(07:14):
The structures within the monastery included church, two oratories, seven
beehive cells, water cisterns, and a cemetery. And locked which
I have also heard Irish people say locked Locked as
a square or rectangular structure built with layers of stones
but no mortar. While they have been found at a
(07:35):
number of Irish Early Christian monastic sites, their function isn't
entirely clear. There have been several theories, including that they
may have marked graves of important holy people or were
used to house relics or had some sort of social
spiritual function, and there are also two large garden terraces
and retaining walls which form the foundation of the entire site.
(07:56):
The second area of construction is separate from the monastery itself,
on ledges of the South Peak. It's composed of several
structures and including an oratory, altar, locked and water cisterns.
Steps cut out of the rock provide access to these structures,
which are described in archaeological stratigraphic report written in two
eleven as daringly constructed. I sort of feel that way
(08:20):
about everything. I'm skelling, Michael. It's so beautiful, but I
don't know that I am its target visitor, because I
think I would spend the whole time screaming in fear
that I would just fall. It's all very steep. That
name is apt uh, And we're gonna go a little
bit deeper into talking about those daring structures that Tracy
just mentioned, uh and where they fit into the island's history.
But first we're gonna pause for a quick sponsor break.
(08:47):
The first known reference to skelling Michael goes all the
way back to sevent b c. It's referenced is the
place where the Prince Ire, fifth son of Milicius, died
when his ship was separated from the rest of his
fleet during a storm, crashed upon a rock and sank.
This is, however, a folkloric accounts, so it remains unverified.
(09:08):
There's another unverified story of Skellic Michael set in the
fifth century. In this instance, after a conflict between the
Kings of Castle and the Kings of Munster, the king
of West Munster named Dwach is said to have fled
to Skellic Michael. And while this event is written as
having happened in the fifth century, that account was recorded
in either the eighth or the ninth century, so it's
(09:30):
it's accuracy is hard to gauge. We know for certain,
based on the structures that we talked about earlier, that
monks moved into the island at some point, but exactly
when that happened also isn't clear. The earliest estimates place
at at the place the start of the monastery somewhere
in the sixth century, although it could have been built
as late as the eighth century and then the earliest
(09:52):
known reference to the monastery is in an Annal entry
from the year eight hundred twenty four, which describes a
Norse raid on sc Like Michael, Yeah, there's a lot
of disparate accounts that that place that at different times,
but it's somewhere in there. I think most people tend
to favor the earlier thing because a lot of the
accounts that happened later on, and we'll talk about it
(10:13):
in a minute, suggests that it was already functioning. The
position of this monastery is actually quite well chosen. It's
six hundred feet above sea level, and where it sits
on the island and in relation to its peaks, offers
some natural shelter, and it has plenty of stones to
use in building, so the monks could access stone from
right there on the island to build these structures, and
(10:34):
it enabled relatively easy water collection, so channels were cut
into sloping stone to direct water right into cisterns that
they had placed, and the two primary cisterns that were
used were built to hold roughly a hundred and twenty
gallons that's about four hundred and fifty liters of water.
One of the unique aspects of the monastery is the
cell structures that are sometimes described as as bee hives.
(10:58):
These hives are shaped like inverted elliptic paraboloids, so not
not bee hives like the flat ones in boxes that
are manufactured, but the domed ones the bees would actually
build on their own or that you know. Sometimes people
keep these in baskets that are that shaped, like an
(11:18):
inverted semi dome sort of structure. They have a doorway
built into the front of each of them and steps
that lead in and out of the doors. The beehive
cells are all arranged along the monasteries large oratory, but
there are some differences among them, and the cells are
lettered for identification. Yeah, and just for clarity, um the
(11:39):
cell letter order does not in any way pertain to
their age order, which I was trying to explain this
to to a friend and they got a little thrown
by that. So just know that this the A through
um G does not in any way suggest that A
came first and Gee was at the end. There with
(12:00):
completely separate um naming systems. So cell A is the
largest one. It actually has a second interior level and
it's believed to have been a communal space, and it's
quite large at the base of the structure. The walls
of Cell A are one point eight meters six so
that's almost six ft, and the interior space is about
fifteen by twelve point five feet that's about four point
(12:22):
six by three point eight meters, and there's an interior
height of sixteen feet. It's about five ms. Cells B
and C are smaller, they're about two thirds the size
of cell A. Cell D is actually no longer intact,
but it was probably the oldest cell on the site.
Probably it collapsed before cells C was completed. Cell E
(12:44):
is bigger than B and C, but smaller than A.
It's it's like a word problem in the s A T.
Cell F is smaller in size to B and C,
and it has these interior slabs that are arranged in
a manner that suggests it might have been a leaping area.
These cells were built at various points in time, and
(13:04):
they aren't homogeneous in their size as noted or in
the way the stone work is done. Yeah, it's pretty
clear evidence that they were worked on at various points
in time. So, uh, it's it spans some number of years.
There is a central church at the monastery that is St.
Michael's and it's partially collapsed, and what would have been
(13:26):
its roof, which would have been made of wood, is
long gone. The church appears also to have not been
built all at the same time, but in two different stages,
the second one to expand on what was a fairly
small church that was built in the first phase. While
a prominent and impressive aspect of the monastery's design is
its retaining walls, they have experienced multiple structural failures throughout
(13:49):
the life of the site and beginning when it was
still occupied. The walls have been the focus of a
lot of conservation and preservation work over the years. Yeah,
they're amazing, and that they really are. Are, you know,
holding up all of this man made structure, But they
definitely are bearing the weight of that man made structure.
And as a consequence, sometimes they get tired and they
(14:11):
break up. Cells don't really get walls don't really get tired.
I know, nobody needs to tell me, but they get
on it. Um. So the daring structures that we referenced
a little while ago make up what's come to be
called the Hermitage, and so in the modern era, UM
these man made structures on Skelling Michael South Peaks, they're
(14:32):
a little bit away from the others. Were first referenced
in an eighteen forty one mapping survey, and then they
made another appearance on record in the eighteen fifties, when
Lord Dunraven visited the island and wrote of having seen
the ruins of a quadrangular building there. The South Peak
ruins were noted again by visiting scholars in the nineteen fifties,
but it actually wasn't until the nineteen eighties that a
(14:53):
study of the site was ordered by the Office of
Public Works. There are three terraces that make up the hermitage.
There's a garden and dwelling terrace that's forty three ft
that's about thirteen meters long. It ranges in width from
six point five to thirteen feet, which is two to
four meters. One end of the terrace, which includes a
section of the retaining wall, it's about five feet or
(15:16):
one and a half meters high, and that remains intact.
The other end of it, though, has collapsed. The Oratory
Terrorists sits at a right angle to the garden and
dwelling terraces, and it's about thirteen feet that's four meters
higher up on the peach on this terrace is a
small oratory with an interior space of seven point five
(15:36):
by six point five feet that's about two point three
by two meters, and this terrace extends far past the
oratory to the east, although it is quite a narrow
sort of terrace that you're you're on at that point
from the oratory terraces. The outer terrace used to be
reachable via a traverse that was chiseled from the stone
by the months, but in modern times it's a place
(15:57):
that's really best visited by skilled call timer's and no
one else. It's treaches to navigate the ledges that you
have to move across. It's not clear if that outer
Terrace was ever completed, and it's also not clear what
its function was. Yeah, I watched a brief like newsreel
of a team that was going up when they were
doing some preservation investigation, and it's like, look, we found handhelds.
(16:19):
Like they're literally basically just scaling up the rock face
until they actually found something that a human could stand on.
So it is not just something you would go, hey,
I'd like to go up there. It's a again, not
a place that I should maybe visit because it looks
terrifying um. Sometime before the early eleventh century, the island
(16:41):
monastery was dedicated to St. Michael. St. Piannon is also
closely tied to the history of the monastery and may
have been its founder. He's often referenced as the founder,
but again it's all a little unclear. Records of the
late twelfth century indicate that the settlement was occupied and
having regular mass at that point, but soon after in
the thirteenth century, shifting church structure in Ireland and increased
(17:05):
instances of inclement weather on and around the island lad
the monastery to be abandoned. The monks who had been
living there moved to the mainland village of Balance Skelags,
and after that point the monastery at Skelling Michael was
considered part of the Balance Skellings Monastery. Yeah, but it
wasn't really, it's not believed to have been occupied after
(17:25):
that point. It just kind of was was notated as
part of their their larger um kind of organizational structure.
But again, like there had been a shift in climate
and they it really was not easy or safe to
occupy that area any longer. From the fourteenth to the
sixteenth centuries. The island appears on navigational charts that were
used by both Italian and Iberian seafarers. The monastery was
(17:49):
officially closed in the sixteenth century with Henry the Eighths
dissolution of monasteries, and it passed into private ownership by
a family named Butler. The Butler family retained ownership of
island until eight one. In November of eighteen twenty, Jay
Butler was approached by the government's Board of Works about
a permanent lease on the island so that two lighthouses
(18:10):
could be built there, and after some back and forth,
legal experts investigating the situation determined that Butler's legal ownership
of the land was not clearly documented. After an appraisal
of the property, the Butler estate was paid seven eighty
pounds for Skelling Michael and the Commissioners of Irish Lights
assumed ownership of it. We're gonna talk about the lighthouses
in just a moment, but first we're gonna pause and
(18:32):
have another short sponsor break. Construction of the two lighthouses
at Skelling Michael began in August of eighteen one. Inspector
George Halpin designed the buildings in roadway and oversaw initial construction.
The lighthouse road runs from the upper lighthouse site, which
(18:55):
is h on the western side of the island, south
to the coast, and then around the islands south and
east edges to the east landing. There is no road
along the northern shore of the island. There aren't many
records of the actual construction process, but both lighthouses were
completed and in use by the end of eighteen six.
(19:15):
The taller of the two lights was nearly four hundred
feet that's a hundreds above the high water mark, with
a visibility range of twenty five miles or forts. The
lower light was a hundred seventy five ft or fifty
three point three ms above the high water mark, with
a visibility range of eighteen miles or twenty kilometers. Both
were non moving lights. Uh in a sad note in
(19:38):
eighteen sixty nine, so more than forty years into the
lighthouses life, a small modern grave was added to the
chapel at Skelling Michael. At that point lighthouse keeper W.
Callahan buried two of his small children there after, both
had died of an illness. He then requested and was
granted a transfer elsewhere as he was concerned for the
(19:58):
health of his remaining child. So there is one instance
of a modern I'm using the air quotes since it
was in the eighteen hundreds, but a modern grave there
at the site. The upper light was in service for
forty four years until it was supplanted by another lighthouse
north of the Skellic Islands in eighteen seventy. The lower
lighthouse has remained in use. That's still in use today,
(20:19):
although there's been an update to it that we'll talk
about in a moment. Yeah, there's actually been a couple
of updates. But the Office of Public Works took possession
of the monastery as a state guardianship in eighteen eighty
with the intent to repair the crumbling structures and establish
an ongoing plan for conservation of the site. In nineteen
o nine, the lower lighthouse was renovated and updated with
(20:40):
a rotating, more powerful light. The lower light in the
original rubble masonry tower remained in use for a hundred
forty six years. It was extinguished in nineteen sixty six
and a temporary lantern was erected, while an entirely new
tower was built the following year. The new lighthouse was
online boasting another upgrade you one point eight million candles light.
(21:02):
In nineteen sixty nine, Skelling Michael's helipad was constructed on
the eastern coast of the island. That helipad is made
of reinforced concrete and three very thick columns supported off
the cliff face. It is terrifying as everything else to
me to look at on the cliff side. The open
side of the helipad, it is a one twenty one
(21:24):
ft or thirty seven meter dropped directly into the ocean.
In nineteen seventy eight, Skelling michael became the focus of
a long term conservation project. At that point, a retaining
wall near the church that's part of the monastery St.
Michael's had experienced a structural failure and it was prioritized
as the project's first order of business. UH And additionally,
(21:45):
steps that were leading up to the main entrance of
the monastery also needed restoration. Natural water erosion had claimed
some of the lower sections that reach into the waterline,
and heavy use of these stairways during periods of lighthouse
construction had all so really damaged some of the mason
rym Only one of the three stairways leading to the
main monastery is currently accessible to visitors. In nineteen eighty
(22:09):
excavation work began at the site of that work has
continued for decades. The National Monument Service of Ireland was
responsible for these efforts. That organization has been part of
various government departments over the years, but it's work at
Skelling Michael has continued seasonally throughout all those reorganizations. Yeah,
there's a narrow window winter you can't really go there
(22:29):
and do any sort of excavation, uh to examine the ruins,
because it's just too cold. Uh. In ninety one a
project was completed that had begun in nineteen to finally
automate the lighthouse. In nineteen eighty nine, the Commissioners of
Irish Lights sold the island Skelling Michael to the State,
which was already the guardian of the monastery, with the
(22:51):
exception of the remaining active lighthouse and its related structures. Yeah,
the Commissioners of Irish Lights still retained that lighthouse area
and then in ninete Skelling Michael became a UNESCO World
Heritage Site. On October twenty two, two thousand one, that
lighthouse was converted to solar power. A lamp change which
(23:11):
was done at the same time, reduced the lights reached
to nineteen miles. Diesel generators are still on hand for
backup power. In the focus of archaeological effort shifted to
the lighthouse road and in seven tons of stone were
brought to the island via military airlift to be used
in the roads restoration. There have been two rescue operations
(23:34):
launched from Skelling Michael to date. On October sixteen, three
of its lighthousekeepers helped rescue two boatloads of survivors from
the S S. Marina, which was a British cargo ship
that had been torpedoed by a German U boat. While
eighteen men died in the attack, more than a hundred
were saved. The three keepers were awarded one pound from
(23:55):
the Board of Trade and an additional guinea from the S. S.
Marina's owner, but Ulson Line Yep. They each got that award.
On February an aircraft exploded in midair after colliding with
the highest peak of the island and falling in pieces
into the water, and British aircraft and the lighthouse keepers
(24:16):
of Scaling Michael executed a search but neither the wreckage
nor any survivors were ever found. Unfortunately, the use of
Scaling Michael as a filming location has been the source
of some friction. Archaeology specialist voiced concerns about the safety
of the monastery, and bird Watched Ireland, which is an
independent conservation group, criticized Ireland's Minister of Arts for approving
(24:38):
the use of the island as a location without involving
a third party specializing in conservation and bird habitat assessment
and unfortunately, those concerns were brought into sharp focus in
when a helicopter on a site scouting flight caused a
number of kittywakeness to be disturbed. The down draft from
the chopper's propeller caused some of the chi x to
(25:00):
be swept into the sea and they were killed by seagulls.
After this incident, everyone involved reassessed the situation. Additional flights
were canceled, the filming schedule was was reviewed to avoid
the primary kitty wading breading season, although other birds still
nesting on the island caused continued concern on the part
of bird Watch Ireland. Bird Watch Ireland's point of view
(25:23):
is that there was a breach and established a protocol
by doing it this way. The Office of the Minister
of Arts remained insistent though, that the European Union Habitats
Directive was upheld, so there's some disagreement on that point. Yeah,
I did notice there are a few instances regarding scaling
Michael outside of this, where there is disagreement about how
(25:45):
restoration has been handled or whether, um, you know, everything
has been executed in the proper way into the letter
of the law. And it usually everything I found just
turned out to be a very similar back and forth
of you did it wrong, No, we didn't, we did
everything like this, we don't agree with you, we think
you're lying like that just goes on and on and on.
So it's a little hard to parse out. Um, Skelling Michael,
(26:07):
i'm a notes to me the site of much disagreement.
But to end all of this on a more poetic note,
it seems fitting to mention the island as it was
seen through the eyes of one of Ireland's most famous
creative minds. In the nineteen ten writer George Bernard Shaw
visited Skelling Michael and it made a very strong impression.
He later wrote the following quote. But for the magic
(26:28):
that takes you out far out of this time. In
this world, there is skelling Michael ten miles off Carry Coast,
shooting straight up seven hundred feet sheer out of the Atlantic.
Whoever has not stood in the graveyard and their beehive
oratory does not know Ireland through and through. That's lovely,
It is very lovely. Thanks George Bernard Shaw. Do you
(26:51):
also have a lovely listener mail? I do. I have
lovely mail, which involves gifts from our listener, Angie. She writes,
Dear Tracy and Holly. I'm a relative me new listener,
but my addiction to listening to your show daily has
caught me up quite a bit. I'm currently living in
South Korea with my family since my husband is in
the military, and listening to your show has helped with
the isolation that can come from living in a rural
(27:13):
area of a foreign country where I'm embarrassed to admit
I can barely speak any Korean. So I want to
thank you for being my friends every day while I'm
taking care of my two year old and my daily tasks.
The friends that I have made here are very much
aware of my fan girl status with your podcast, and
they will ask me what new and interesting topics I
have recently learned about. So it makes me happy knowing
that I'm sharing knowledge in a time where entertainment has
(27:34):
seemed more important than learning, and luckily for me, your
podcast is both entertaining and educational. Um. She mentions that
her physical therapist, who is Korean, asked about our podcast,
and she told him about our Prince Sotto episode uh,
and he said that he is a descendant of Prince Otto,
being able to trace back his family history since it
(27:54):
is very common for Korean families to have records of
their lineage dating back hundreds of years. Um. And she
talked about the Korean holiday that kind of is the
equivalent of Thanksgiving, where everyone travels home, eats traditional food,
and visits their ancestors burial sites to make food offerings,
and finally ending the holiday with a midnight dance under
the harvest moon. This is one of the holidays where
(28:16):
every store stocks up with expensive spam gift sets, which
you briefly mentioned during your spam podcast. I wanted to
send you some traditional treats that we enjoy, and then
she describes them there's the super yummy little confectioneries that
she sent. She said, we're moving next month to Oahu,
and I joke with my husband that the Army is
taking us on a worldwide tour of spam, first Korea
and now Hawaii, and lucky for us, we enjoy eating it.
(28:39):
I cannot wait to be able to strike up a
conversation with a local about the history of spam, the
pineapple industry, and or leprosy, although I might get some
suspicious looks from that last one. She also talks a
little bit about Tokyo, Disneyland and Disney Sea. But thank
you for this amazing parcel. She sent us a lot
of different stuff, so when you were in the office
next which is soon ish, we'll pick through it and
(28:59):
and taste everything. So Angie, thank you so much. What
a delightful treat like we get some of the best gifts.
I feel very spoiled by our listeners. Uh. If you
would like to write to us, still feel like you
have to send us a gift, you can just write
to us via email at History Podcast at how stuff
works dot com. You can also find us across the
spectrum of social media. As missed in History. Uh. We
(29:21):
are also at missed in History dot com, where you
can find every show that has ever existed of the podcast,
including those way before Tracy and I were ever involved
in it, and show notes for any of the ones
that Tracy and I have worked on. So come along
and listen to History with Us at missed in History
dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
(29:45):
Does It How stuff works dot com
Welcome to steph you missed in history class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Frying and I'm Trac B. Wilson. Uh. If
you are a Star Wars fan, and frankly even if
you're not, you have probably seen scenes of Luke Skywalker
(00:23):
in The Force Awakens and in promotional materials for The
Last Jedi, where he and eventually Ray are standing on
an island with ancient looking structures on it that is
a real island that's not a set. And those structures
are also not sets that were built for the film.
They are part of a real thing that is ancient.
Skellic Michael, the island where those scenes were shot is
(00:45):
a historic site with a fascinating history all its own.
It's also got kind of a nice juxtaposition because a
big chunk of its history is is much older, and
then there's a newer history of some of them more
modern things that have been built on the island. Um. So,
since I have Star Wars rabies and I can barely
manage to contain myself while I wait for the Last
Jedia premiere, uh, and because this really is a legitimately
(01:08):
very very interesting historical site. I thought it might be
fun to delve into this location in its rich history
for the podcast. Yeah, if you were concerned, based on
the number of times that we said the last Jedi,
we're not going to be talking about anything in the
movie at all on the island at all. That's pretty
much all the Star Wars talk except a story about
(01:29):
filming at the end, and even that has nothing to
do so we're not going to spoil anyone or anything
related there no Star Wars. You would have had to
have not gone to see the Fourth Awakens yet for
that to have been a spoiler, which I don't know.
Maybe we didn't, but at this point, if you haven't
gone to see the Force Awakens, then I think you
(01:50):
would have to have been in media blackout because it's
appeared on so many like magazine covers, television, tromos um.
You know, interview us are often inter cut if you
see them on television with shots of this island. So
it's I don't think we're giving anything away. I feel
confident that we have skirted any well. I think if
(02:13):
you have not yet seen Force Awakens, you probably don't
care about Star Wars spoilers. Right, none of which are
in here anyway. We are literally just talking about the
history of this. I want to be very clear, Okay.
Skelling Michael is one of two islands that make up
the Skellic Islands. The word skelling derives from the Irish
(02:35):
word for steep rock. And then the other island is
the smaller one of the two. It's called Little Island
and it's closed to visitors. Sometimes we'll also see you
skelling Michael called Great Skelling yep. Also you'll see it
spelled in various different ways. We're going with kind of
the most basic, uh, globally facing spelling that gets used
(02:55):
a lot. It's probably the americanized spelling. That's just the
scoop on that. If you see it spelled a different way,
that's why. And Skelling Michael is uh seven miles that's
eleven point six kilometers west of the edge of Ireland's
Eva Peninsula in County Kerry, and the highest elevation of
the island is seven hundred and fifteen feet that's about
(03:15):
two hundred and eighteen meters. And this island is tiny.
It is less than a square mile in area. So
if you do hectares. That's nine hectares. The Minister for
Art Heritage and the Geltacht owned Skelling Michael on behalf
of the Irish people. And there's also a lighthouse and
support buildings for the lighthouse on the southern end of
(03:36):
the island, as well as a helipad. And this portion
of the island falls outside of the ownership arrangement mentioned above.
We'll get a little bit more into that in a bit.
The geological makeup of Skelling Michael is what's called Old
Red sandstone, sedimentary layers of rock deposited somewhere between three
hundred sixty and three hundred seventy four million years ago
during the Devonian period, when Ireland was part of a
(03:58):
much larger continent. It's the westernmost European instance of Devonian sandstone,
which can be found throughout Britain and Ireland, Scandinavia and Greenland.
It's also in portions of Canada. Skelling Michael also has
to twin peaks with a valley in the middle which
has come to me known as Christ's Saddle Uh and
(04:20):
that hellapad that we mentioned briefly is for emergencies only.
That's not a standard way to get on and off
the island or special cases um So from the middle
of May to September, visitors may travel to Skelling Michael,
but only by boat and it is for davisits exclusively
and I should also mention that sometimes if they have
had damage in the winter, they will shorten that window
(04:40):
that visitors can come. Tourists also cannot stay overnight on
the island and there are no amenities. Basically, you you
go for a little while and you get back on
the boat and you leave. Uh. The island is also
designated a statutory nature reserve, so no animal visitors are
allowed and no trash can be left behind the The
animals that most commonly benefit from the islands reserve status
(05:03):
are birds. Seabirds often nest there during their respective breeding seasons.
Skellic Michael is considered one of the most important breeding
grounds for birds in Ireland, and for some species it's
one of the most important places in the world. The
storm Petrol and makes Sheerwater have some of their largest
breeding groups on the island, and it's also home to
puffins which I love and kitty Wake among others. Paragram
(05:28):
falcons also nest there although not every year, and there
are a few mammals on the island as well, including
gray seals, house mice, and rabbits. Also of interest in
terms of its natural makeup is the lichen that grows
on Skelling Michael. There are actually one hundred and twenty
eight different species of lichen found on this tiny rocky island,
(05:50):
and to like in a colas fungi, that's enough to
classify it as a nationally important site for lichen growth
based on a conservation study that was conducted in two
thousand nine. To get to more of the human made structures,
Skelling Michael is also home to a monastery that was
built hundreds of years ago, and we're going to get
(06:11):
into the history of that in more detailed descriptions of
the monastery and just a bit but at first. But
first we're going to talk about how it exists there today.
The settlement has two different segments, and the first is
the monastery itself, which is built on the islands east side,
high up on sloping areas of rock. The monastery has
(06:31):
three access points, all of which involve navigating a lot
of steps. A lot of steps, like they actually say
in the visit any of the visitors stuff that you
may read, like the visitors advisories like please don't come
if you're not ready to take on like six hundred steps,
because it is vigorous work and it's not there's not
(06:52):
an easy way up. There's like I said, there are
no amenities, there's no elevator, there are no chair lifts.
You have to handle it yourself. And those steps are
really amazing because they're cut from the rock of the island,
from the landing point where you would first step foot
on the island up to the highest point where water
can possibly reach, and then above that height the steps continue,
but from then on they're made of dry stone masonry.
(07:14):
The structures within the monastery included church, two oratories, seven
beehive cells, water cisterns, and a cemetery. And locked which
I have also heard Irish people say locked Locked as
a square or rectangular structure built with layers of stones
but no mortar. While they have been found at a
(07:35):
number of Irish Early Christian monastic sites, their function isn't
entirely clear. There have been several theories, including that they
may have marked graves of important holy people or were
used to house relics or had some sort of social
spiritual function, and there are also two large garden terraces
and retaining walls which form the foundation of the entire site.
(07:56):
The second area of construction is separate from the monastery itself,
on ledges of the South Peak. It's composed of several
structures and including an oratory, altar, locked and water cisterns.
Steps cut out of the rock provide access to these structures,
which are described in archaeological stratigraphic report written in two
eleven as daringly constructed. I sort of feel that way
(08:20):
about everything. I'm skelling, Michael. It's so beautiful, but I
don't know that I am its target visitor, because I
think I would spend the whole time screaming in fear
that I would just fall. It's all very steep. That
name is apt uh, And we're gonna go a little
bit deeper into talking about those daring structures that Tracy
just mentioned, uh and where they fit into the island's history.
But first we're gonna pause for a quick sponsor break.
(08:47):
The first known reference to skelling Michael goes all the
way back to sevent b c. It's referenced is the
place where the Prince Ire, fifth son of Milicius, died
when his ship was separated from the rest of his
fleet during a storm, crashed upon a rock and sank.
This is, however, a folkloric accounts, so it remains unverified.
(09:08):
There's another unverified story of Skellic Michael set in the
fifth century. In this instance, after a conflict between the
Kings of Castle and the Kings of Munster, the king
of West Munster named Dwach is said to have fled
to Skellic Michael. And while this event is written as
having happened in the fifth century, that account was recorded
in either the eighth or the ninth century, so it's
(09:30):
it's accuracy is hard to gauge. We know for certain,
based on the structures that we talked about earlier, that
monks moved into the island at some point, but exactly
when that happened also isn't clear. The earliest estimates place
at at the place the start of the monastery somewhere
in the sixth century, although it could have been built
as late as the eighth century and then the earliest
(09:52):
known reference to the monastery is in an Annal entry
from the year eight hundred twenty four, which describes a
Norse raid on sc Like Michael, Yeah, there's a lot
of disparate accounts that that place that at different times,
but it's somewhere in there. I think most people tend
to favor the earlier thing because a lot of the
accounts that happened later on, and we'll talk about it
(10:13):
in a minute, suggests that it was already functioning. The
position of this monastery is actually quite well chosen. It's
six hundred feet above sea level, and where it sits
on the island and in relation to its peaks, offers
some natural shelter, and it has plenty of stones to
use in building, so the monks could access stone from
right there on the island to build these structures, and
(10:34):
it enabled relatively easy water collection, so channels were cut
into sloping stone to direct water right into cisterns that
they had placed, and the two primary cisterns that were
used were built to hold roughly a hundred and twenty
gallons that's about four hundred and fifty liters of water.
One of the unique aspects of the monastery is the
cell structures that are sometimes described as as bee hives.
(10:58):
These hives are shaped like inverted elliptic paraboloids, so not
not bee hives like the flat ones in boxes that
are manufactured, but the domed ones the bees would actually
build on their own or that you know. Sometimes people
keep these in baskets that are that shaped, like an
(11:18):
inverted semi dome sort of structure. They have a doorway
built into the front of each of them and steps
that lead in and out of the doors. The beehive
cells are all arranged along the monasteries large oratory, but
there are some differences among them, and the cells are
lettered for identification. Yeah, and just for clarity, um the
(11:39):
cell letter order does not in any way pertain to
their age order, which I was trying to explain this
to to a friend and they got a little thrown
by that. So just know that this the A through
um G does not in any way suggest that A
came first and Gee was at the end. There with
(12:00):
completely separate um naming systems. So cell A is the
largest one. It actually has a second interior level and
it's believed to have been a communal space, and it's
quite large at the base of the structure. The walls
of Cell A are one point eight meters six so
that's almost six ft, and the interior space is about
fifteen by twelve point five feet that's about four point
(12:22):
six by three point eight meters, and there's an interior
height of sixteen feet. It's about five ms. Cells B
and C are smaller, they're about two thirds the size
of cell A. Cell D is actually no longer intact,
but it was probably the oldest cell on the site.
Probably it collapsed before cells C was completed. Cell E
(12:44):
is bigger than B and C, but smaller than A.
It's it's like a word problem in the s A T.
Cell F is smaller in size to B and C,
and it has these interior slabs that are arranged in
a manner that suggests it might have been a leaping area.
These cells were built at various points in time, and
(13:04):
they aren't homogeneous in their size as noted or in
the way the stone work is done. Yeah, it's pretty
clear evidence that they were worked on at various points
in time. So, uh, it's it spans some number of years.
There is a central church at the monastery that is St.
Michael's and it's partially collapsed, and what would have been
(13:26):
its roof, which would have been made of wood, is
long gone. The church appears also to have not been
built all at the same time, but in two different stages,
the second one to expand on what was a fairly
small church that was built in the first phase. While
a prominent and impressive aspect of the monastery's design is
its retaining walls, they have experienced multiple structural failures throughout
(13:49):
the life of the site and beginning when it was
still occupied. The walls have been the focus of a
lot of conservation and preservation work over the years. Yeah,
they're amazing, and that they really are. Are, you know,
holding up all of this man made structure, But they
definitely are bearing the weight of that man made structure.
And as a consequence, sometimes they get tired and they
(14:11):
break up. Cells don't really get walls don't really get tired.
I know, nobody needs to tell me, but they get
on it. Um. So the daring structures that we referenced
a little while ago make up what's come to be
called the Hermitage, and so in the modern era, UM
these man made structures on Skelling Michael South Peaks, they're
(14:32):
a little bit away from the others. Were first referenced
in an eighteen forty one mapping survey, and then they
made another appearance on record in the eighteen fifties, when
Lord Dunraven visited the island and wrote of having seen
the ruins of a quadrangular building there. The South Peak
ruins were noted again by visiting scholars in the nineteen fifties,
but it actually wasn't until the nineteen eighties that a
(14:53):
study of the site was ordered by the Office of
Public Works. There are three terraces that make up the hermitage.
There's a garden and dwelling terrace that's forty three ft
that's about thirteen meters long. It ranges in width from
six point five to thirteen feet, which is two to
four meters. One end of the terrace, which includes a
section of the retaining wall, it's about five feet or
(15:16):
one and a half meters high, and that remains intact.
The other end of it, though, has collapsed. The Oratory
Terrorists sits at a right angle to the garden and
dwelling terraces, and it's about thirteen feet that's four meters
higher up on the peach on this terrace is a
small oratory with an interior space of seven point five
(15:36):
by six point five feet that's about two point three
by two meters, and this terrace extends far past the
oratory to the east, although it is quite a narrow
sort of terrace that you're you're on at that point
from the oratory terraces. The outer terrace used to be
reachable via a traverse that was chiseled from the stone
by the months, but in modern times it's a place
(15:57):
that's really best visited by skilled call timer's and no
one else. It's treaches to navigate the ledges that you
have to move across. It's not clear if that outer
Terrace was ever completed, and it's also not clear what
its function was. Yeah, I watched a brief like newsreel
of a team that was going up when they were
doing some preservation investigation, and it's like, look, we found handhelds.
(16:19):
Like they're literally basically just scaling up the rock face
until they actually found something that a human could stand on.
So it is not just something you would go, hey,
I'd like to go up there. It's a again, not
a place that I should maybe visit because it looks
terrifying um. Sometime before the early eleventh century, the island
(16:41):
monastery was dedicated to St. Michael. St. Piannon is also
closely tied to the history of the monastery and may
have been its founder. He's often referenced as the founder,
but again it's all a little unclear. Records of the
late twelfth century indicate that the settlement was occupied and
having regular mass at that point, but soon after in
the thirteenth century, shifting church structure in Ireland and increased
(17:05):
instances of inclement weather on and around the island lad
the monastery to be abandoned. The monks who had been
living there moved to the mainland village of Balance Skelags,
and after that point the monastery at Skelling Michael was
considered part of the Balance Skellings Monastery. Yeah, but it
wasn't really, it's not believed to have been occupied after
(17:25):
that point. It just kind of was was notated as
part of their their larger um kind of organizational structure.
But again, like there had been a shift in climate
and they it really was not easy or safe to
occupy that area any longer. From the fourteenth to the
sixteenth centuries. The island appears on navigational charts that were
used by both Italian and Iberian seafarers. The monastery was
(17:49):
officially closed in the sixteenth century with Henry the Eighths
dissolution of monasteries, and it passed into private ownership by
a family named Butler. The Butler family retained ownership of
island until eight one. In November of eighteen twenty, Jay
Butler was approached by the government's Board of Works about
a permanent lease on the island so that two lighthouses
(18:10):
could be built there, and after some back and forth,
legal experts investigating the situation determined that Butler's legal ownership
of the land was not clearly documented. After an appraisal
of the property, the Butler estate was paid seven eighty
pounds for Skelling Michael and the Commissioners of Irish Lights
assumed ownership of it. We're gonna talk about the lighthouses
in just a moment, but first we're gonna pause and
(18:32):
have another short sponsor break. Construction of the two lighthouses
at Skelling Michael began in August of eighteen one. Inspector
George Halpin designed the buildings in roadway and oversaw initial construction.
The lighthouse road runs from the upper lighthouse site, which
(18:55):
is h on the western side of the island, south
to the coast, and then around the islands south and
east edges to the east landing. There is no road
along the northern shore of the island. There aren't many
records of the actual construction process, but both lighthouses were
completed and in use by the end of eighteen six.
(19:15):
The taller of the two lights was nearly four hundred
feet that's a hundreds above the high water mark, with
a visibility range of twenty five miles or forts. The
lower light was a hundred seventy five ft or fifty
three point three ms above the high water mark, with
a visibility range of eighteen miles or twenty kilometers. Both
were non moving lights. Uh in a sad note in
(19:38):
eighteen sixty nine, so more than forty years into the
lighthouses life, a small modern grave was added to the
chapel at Skelling Michael. At that point lighthouse keeper W.
Callahan buried two of his small children there after, both
had died of an illness. He then requested and was
granted a transfer elsewhere as he was concerned for the
(19:58):
health of his remaining child. So there is one instance
of a modern I'm using the air quotes since it
was in the eighteen hundreds, but a modern grave there
at the site. The upper light was in service for
forty four years until it was supplanted by another lighthouse
north of the Skellic Islands in eighteen seventy. The lower
lighthouse has remained in use. That's still in use today,
(20:19):
although there's been an update to it that we'll talk
about in a moment. Yeah, there's actually been a couple
of updates. But the Office of Public Works took possession
of the monastery as a state guardianship in eighteen eighty
with the intent to repair the crumbling structures and establish
an ongoing plan for conservation of the site. In nineteen
o nine, the lower lighthouse was renovated and updated with
(20:40):
a rotating, more powerful light. The lower light in the
original rubble masonry tower remained in use for a hundred
forty six years. It was extinguished in nineteen sixty six
and a temporary lantern was erected, while an entirely new
tower was built the following year. The new lighthouse was
online boasting another upgrade you one point eight million candles light.
(21:02):
In nineteen sixty nine, Skelling Michael's helipad was constructed on
the eastern coast of the island. That helipad is made
of reinforced concrete and three very thick columns supported off
the cliff face. It is terrifying as everything else to
me to look at on the cliff side. The open
side of the helipad, it is a one twenty one
(21:24):
ft or thirty seven meter dropped directly into the ocean.
In nineteen seventy eight, Skelling michael became the focus of
a long term conservation project. At that point, a retaining
wall near the church that's part of the monastery St.
Michael's had experienced a structural failure and it was prioritized
as the project's first order of business. UH And additionally,
(21:45):
steps that were leading up to the main entrance of
the monastery also needed restoration. Natural water erosion had claimed
some of the lower sections that reach into the waterline,
and heavy use of these stairways during periods of lighthouse
construction had all so really damaged some of the mason
rym Only one of the three stairways leading to the
main monastery is currently accessible to visitors. In nineteen eighty
(22:09):
excavation work began at the site of that work has
continued for decades. The National Monument Service of Ireland was
responsible for these efforts. That organization has been part of
various government departments over the years, but it's work at
Skelling Michael has continued seasonally throughout all those reorganizations. Yeah,
there's a narrow window winter you can't really go there
(22:29):
and do any sort of excavation, uh to examine the ruins,
because it's just too cold. Uh. In ninety one a
project was completed that had begun in nineteen to finally
automate the lighthouse. In nineteen eighty nine, the Commissioners of
Irish Lights sold the island Skelling Michael to the State,
which was already the guardian of the monastery, with the
(22:51):
exception of the remaining active lighthouse and its related structures. Yeah,
the Commissioners of Irish Lights still retained that lighthouse area
and then in ninete Skelling Michael became a UNESCO World
Heritage Site. On October twenty two, two thousand one, that
lighthouse was converted to solar power. A lamp change which
(23:11):
was done at the same time, reduced the lights reached
to nineteen miles. Diesel generators are still on hand for
backup power. In the focus of archaeological effort shifted to
the lighthouse road and in seven tons of stone were
brought to the island via military airlift to be used
in the roads restoration. There have been two rescue operations
(23:34):
launched from Skelling Michael to date. On October sixteen, three
of its lighthousekeepers helped rescue two boatloads of survivors from
the S S. Marina, which was a British cargo ship
that had been torpedoed by a German U boat. While
eighteen men died in the attack, more than a hundred
were saved. The three keepers were awarded one pound from
(23:55):
the Board of Trade and an additional guinea from the S. S.
Marina's owner, but Ulson Line Yep. They each got that award.
On February an aircraft exploded in midair after colliding with
the highest peak of the island and falling in pieces
into the water, and British aircraft and the lighthouse keepers
(24:16):
of Scaling Michael executed a search but neither the wreckage
nor any survivors were ever found. Unfortunately, the use of
Scaling Michael as a filming location has been the source
of some friction. Archaeology specialist voiced concerns about the safety
of the monastery, and bird Watched Ireland, which is an
independent conservation group, criticized Ireland's Minister of Arts for approving
(24:38):
the use of the island as a location without involving
a third party specializing in conservation and bird habitat assessment
and unfortunately, those concerns were brought into sharp focus in
when a helicopter on a site scouting flight caused a
number of kittywakeness to be disturbed. The down draft from
the chopper's propeller caused some of the chi x to
(25:00):
be swept into the sea and they were killed by seagulls.
After this incident, everyone involved reassessed the situation. Additional flights
were canceled, the filming schedule was was reviewed to avoid
the primary kitty wading breading season, although other birds still
nesting on the island caused continued concern on the part
of bird Watch Ireland. Bird Watch Ireland's point of view
(25:23):
is that there was a breach and established a protocol
by doing it this way. The Office of the Minister
of Arts remained insistent though, that the European Union Habitats
Directive was upheld, so there's some disagreement on that point. Yeah,
I did notice there are a few instances regarding scaling
Michael outside of this, where there is disagreement about how
(25:45):
restoration has been handled or whether, um, you know, everything
has been executed in the proper way into the letter
of the law. And it usually everything I found just
turned out to be a very similar back and forth
of you did it wrong, No, we didn't, we did
everything like this, we don't agree with you, we think
you're lying like that just goes on and on and on.
So it's a little hard to parse out. Um, Skelling Michael,
(26:07):
i'm a notes to me the site of much disagreement.
But to end all of this on a more poetic note,
it seems fitting to mention the island as it was
seen through the eyes of one of Ireland's most famous
creative minds. In the nineteen ten writer George Bernard Shaw
visited Skelling Michael and it made a very strong impression.
He later wrote the following quote. But for the magic
(26:28):
that takes you out far out of this time. In
this world, there is skelling Michael ten miles off Carry Coast,
shooting straight up seven hundred feet sheer out of the Atlantic.
Whoever has not stood in the graveyard and their beehive
oratory does not know Ireland through and through. That's lovely,
It is very lovely. Thanks George Bernard Shaw. Do you
(26:51):
also have a lovely listener mail? I do. I have
lovely mail, which involves gifts from our listener, Angie. She writes,
Dear Tracy and Holly. I'm a relative me new listener,
but my addiction to listening to your show daily has
caught me up quite a bit. I'm currently living in
South Korea with my family since my husband is in
the military, and listening to your show has helped with
the isolation that can come from living in a rural
(27:13):
area of a foreign country where I'm embarrassed to admit
I can barely speak any Korean. So I want to
thank you for being my friends every day while I'm
taking care of my two year old and my daily tasks.
The friends that I have made here are very much
aware of my fan girl status with your podcast, and
they will ask me what new and interesting topics I
have recently learned about. So it makes me happy knowing
that I'm sharing knowledge in a time where entertainment has
(27:34):
seemed more important than learning, and luckily for me, your
podcast is both entertaining and educational. Um. She mentions that
her physical therapist, who is Korean, asked about our podcast,
and she told him about our Prince Sotto episode uh,
and he said that he is a descendant of Prince Otto,
being able to trace back his family history since it
(27:54):
is very common for Korean families to have records of
their lineage dating back hundreds of years. Um. And she
talked about the Korean holiday that kind of is the
equivalent of Thanksgiving, where everyone travels home, eats traditional food,
and visits their ancestors burial sites to make food offerings,
and finally ending the holiday with a midnight dance under
the harvest moon. This is one of the holidays where
(28:16):
every store stocks up with expensive spam gift sets, which
you briefly mentioned during your spam podcast. I wanted to
send you some traditional treats that we enjoy, and then
she describes them there's the super yummy little confectioneries that
she sent. She said, we're moving next month to Oahu,
and I joke with my husband that the Army is
taking us on a worldwide tour of spam, first Korea
and now Hawaii, and lucky for us, we enjoy eating it.
(28:39):
I cannot wait to be able to strike up a
conversation with a local about the history of spam, the
pineapple industry, and or leprosy, although I might get some
suspicious looks from that last one. She also talks a
little bit about Tokyo, Disneyland and Disney Sea. But thank
you for this amazing parcel. She sent us a lot
of different stuff, so when you were in the office
next which is soon ish, we'll pick through it and
(28:59):
and taste everything. So Angie, thank you so much. What
a delightful treat like we get some of the best gifts.
I feel very spoiled by our listeners. Uh. If you
would like to write to us, still feel like you
have to send us a gift, you can just write
to us via email at History Podcast at how stuff
works dot com. You can also find us across the
spectrum of social media. As missed in History. Uh. We
(29:21):
are also at missed in History dot com, where you
can find every show that has ever existed of the podcast,
including those way before Tracy and I were ever involved
in it, and show notes for any of the ones
that Tracy and I have worked on. So come along
and listen to History with Us at missed in History
dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
(29:45):
Does It How stuff works dot com
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Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.