March 13, 2021 • 28 mins
Today, we revisit a December 2017 episode about Skellig Michael. This small island off the west coast of Ireland recently became a film star, but Skellig Michael has a rich history all its own.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Happy Saturday, everybody. Uh St Patrick's Day is just around
the corner. We always get requests for Irish history, so
we've decided to pull a little bit out of the archive.
This is our episode on Skelling Michael. And although we
chose this episode because of Skelling Michael's use as a
Star Wars filming location, it is also the site of
one of Ireland's early Christian monastic sites. This episode originally
(00:25):
came out December six, so enjoy Welcome to Stuff You
missed in History Class, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frying and I'm
(00:47):
Tracy Wilson. If you're a Star Wars fan, and frankly
even if you're not, you have probably seen scenes of
Luke Skywalker in The Force Awakens and in promotional materials
for The Last Jedi where he and visually Ray are
standing on an island with ancient looking structures on it.
That is a real island, that's not a set, and
(01:08):
those structures are also not sets that were built for
the film. They are part of a real thing that
is ancient Skelling Michael. The island where those scenes were
shot is 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 the
more modern things that have been built on the island.
(01:30):
Um So, since I have Star Wars rabies and I
can barely manage to contain myself while I wait for
the Last Jedita premiere, uh, and because this really is
a legitimately very very interesting uh historical site, I thought
it might be fund 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
(01:52):
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 Worst talk except a
story about filming at the end, and even that has
nothing to do. So we're not going to spoil anyone
or anything related or no Star Wars. You would have
had to have not gone to see The Force Awakens
(02:13):
yet for that to have been a spoiler, which I
don't know, maybe you didn't, but at this point, if
you haven't gone to see The Force Awakens. Then I
think you would have to have been in media blackout
because it's appeared on so many like magazine covers, television promos. Um.
You know, interviews are often inter cut if you see
(02:34):
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 territory. Well, I think if
you have not yet seen Force Awakens, you probably don't
care about Star Wars spoilers, right, none of which are
(02:54):
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
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 you'll also see Skelling
(03:16):
Michael called the 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
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
(03:37):
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
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
(03:59):
Art hair Ritage 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 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
(04:23):
somewhere between three hundred sixty and three hundred seventy four
million years ago during the Devonian period. When Ireland was
part of a 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.
(04:43):
Skelling Michael also has to twin peaks with a valley
in the middle, which has come to be known as
Christ's Saddle. Uh. And that helipad 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
(05:06):
is for davisits exclusively. And I should also mention that
sometimes if they have had damage in the winter, they
will shorten that window 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
(05:28):
visitors are allowed and no trash can be left behind.
The animals that most commonly benefit from the islands reserve
status are birds. Seabirds often nest there during their respective
breeding seasons. Skelling 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.
(05:49):
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 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
(06:12):
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 and to like in a Colis fungi, that's
enough to classify it as a nationally important site for
like in growth based on a conservation study that was
conducted in two thousand nine to get to more of
(06:34):
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 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,
(06:55):
and the first is the monastery itself, which is built
on the island's east side, high up on sloping areas
of rock. The monastery has 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
(07:15):
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 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
(07:36):
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. The structures within the
monastery included church, two oratories, seven beehive cells, water cisterns
and a cemetery and locked, which I have also heard
(07:57):
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 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,
(08:18):
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. 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, blocked and water cisterns. Steps cut
(08:41):
out of the rock provide access to these structures, which
are described in archaeological stratigraphic report written in twenty eleven
as daringly constructed. I sort of feel that way about
everything on Skellic 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 figared that
I would just fall. It's all very steep. That name
(09:02):
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.
(09:23):
The first known reference to skelling Michael goes all the
way back to se 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.
(09:44):
There's another unverified story of scaling 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 Duach 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 it's
(10:06):
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 known
(10:28):
reference to the monastery is in an annal entry from
the year eight d twenty four which describes a Norse
raid on Skellig Michael. Yeah, there's a lot of disparate
accounts that the 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 in a minute,
(10:49):
suggests that it was already functioning. The position of this
monastery is actually quite well chosen. It's six dred feet
above sea level, and where it sits on the island
in 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 it enabled relatively
(11:12):
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 dred 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. These hives are
(11:35):
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 bees in
baskets that are that shaped like an inverted semi dome
(11:57):
sort of structure. They have a doorway 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 monastery's large oratory, but there are some differences
among them, and the cells are lettered for identification. Yeah,
and just for clarity, um. The cell letter order does
(12:17):
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 GE
was at the end. There completely separate um naming systems.
(12:39):
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 six by three point eight meters,
(13:00):
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 is bigger than B and C,
(13:22):
but smaller than A. It's it's like a word problem
in the S A T S. 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 sleeping area. These cells were
built at various points in time, and they aren't homogeneous
in their size as noted or in the way the
(13:43):
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 part really collapsed and what would have been its roof,
which would have been made of wood, is long gone.
(14:04):
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 the
(14:25):
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, 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 break up. Cells don't
(14:48):
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 a little bit
away from the others, were first referenced in an eighteen
(15:11):
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 study of
the site was ordered by the Office of Public Works.
(15:33):
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 attaining wall, it was about five ft or one
and a half meters high, and that remains intact. The
(15:55):
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 peak on this terrace is a small oratory
with an interior space of seven point five by six
point five feet that's about two point three by two meters,
(16:15):
and this terrace extends far past the oratory to the east,
although it is quite a narrow sort of Terrorists that
you're you're on at that point from the Oratory Terrorists.
The outer terraces used to be reachable via a traverse
that was chiseled from the stone by the monks, but
in modern times it's a place that's really best visited
by skilled climbers and no one else. It's treacherous to
(16:38):
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. Like they're literally basically
(16:58):
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 monastery was dedicated
(17:19):
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 indicates
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 instances of inclement weather
(17:42):
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 Skelligs, 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 that point. It just kind
(18:02):
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 officially closed in the sixteenth
(18:26):
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 the 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 could be built there,
(18:47):
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 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 have another short sponsor break.
(19:19):
Construction of the two lighthouses at Skelling Michael began in
August of eighty one. Inspector George Holpin designed the buildings
in roadway and oversaw initial construction. The lighthouse road runs
from the upper lighthouse site, which is on the western
side of the islands, south to the coast, and then
(19:41):
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 The taller of the two lights was nearly four
hundred feet that's a hu of the high water mark,
with a visibility range of twenty five miles or forty kilometers.
(20:05):
The lower light was a hundred seventy five ft or
fifty three point three meters above the high water mark.
With a visibility range of eighteen miles or twenty nine kilometers.
Both were non moving lights. Uh in a sad note
in 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.
(20:28):
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
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 planted by another lighthouse
(20:51):
north of the Skellic Islands in eighteen seventy. The lower
lighthouse has remained in use. That's still in use today,
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
(21:13):
an ongoing plan for conservation of the site. In nineteen
o nine, the lower lighthouse was renovated and updated with
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
(21:34):
tower was built. The following year, the new lighthouse was online,
boasting another upgrade to one point eight million candles light.
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
(21:57):
me to look at on the the cliff side the
open side of the helipad, it is a one twenty
one ft or thirty seven meter dropped directly into the ocean.
In nineteen seventy eight, Skellig 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
(22:20):
as the project's first order of business. UH. And additionally,
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 also really damaged some of the masonry. Only
(22:42):
one of the three stairways leading to the main monastery
is currently accessible to visitors. In nine eight, 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
(23:02):
seasonally throughout all those re organizations. Yeah, there's a narrow
window winter you can't really go there and do any
sort of excavation UH to examine the ruins because it's
just too cold. UH. In nine eighty one, a project
was completed that had begun in nineteen eight to finally
automate the lighthouse. In nineteen eighty nine, the Commissioners of
(23:24):
Irish Lights sold the island Skelling Michael to the State,
which was already the guardian of the monastery, with the
exception of the remaining active lighthouse and its related structures.
Yeah the Commissioners of Irish Lights still retained that lighthouse
area and then in n Skelling Michael became a UNESCO
World Heritage Site. On October twenty two, two thousand one,
(23:47):
that lighthouse was converted to solar power. A lamp change
which 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
(24:09):
used in the roads restoration. There have been two rescue
operations 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
(24:31):
hundred were saved. The three keepers were awarded one pound
from the Board of Trade and an additional guinea from
the S S. Marina's owner, the Donaldson Line YEP. They
each got that award. On February ninety four, an aircraft
exploded in mid air after colliding with the highest peak
of the island and falling in pieces into the water,
(24:53):
and British aircraft and the lighthouse keepers of Scaling Michael
executed a search, but neither the wreckage nor any survive
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,
(25:15):
criticized Ireland's Minister of Arts for approving 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 kittywake
nests to be disturbed. The down draft from the chopper's
(25:37):
propeller caused some of the chicks to 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 breading season,
although other birds still nesting on the island caused continued
(25:58):
concern on the part of bird Watch Ireland. Bird Watched
Ireland's point of view 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
(26:22):
there is disagreement about how 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 turns 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
(26:43):
on and on. So it's a little hard to parse
out um scaling Michael 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 Hi
writer George Bernard Shaw visited skelling Michael and it made
(27:03):
a very strong impression. He later wrote the following quote,
But for the magic that takes you out far out
of this time, in this world, there is skelling Michael,
ten miles off Carrey 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.
(27:28):
Thanks George Bernard Shaw, Thanks so much for joining us
on this Saturday. Since this episode is out of the archive,
if you heard an email address or Facebook U r
L or something similar over the course of the show
that could be obsolete. Now. Our current email address is
(27:49):
History Podcast at I Heart radio dot com. Our old
house stuff works email address no longer works, and you
can find us all over social media at Missed in History,
and you can subscribe to our show on Apple podcasts,
Google podcast the I heart Radio app, and wherever else
you listen to podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class
(28:12):
is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts
from I heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Happy Saturday, everybody. Uh St Patrick's Day is just around
the corner. We always get requests for Irish history, so
we've decided to pull a little bit out of the archive.
This is our episode on Skelling Michael. And although we
chose this episode because of Skelling Michael's use as a
Star Wars filming location, it is also the site of
one of Ireland's early Christian monastic sites. This episode originally
(00:25):
came out December six, so enjoy Welcome to Stuff You
missed in History Class, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frying and I'm
(00:47):
Tracy Wilson. If you're a Star Wars fan, and frankly
even if you're not, you have probably seen scenes of
Luke Skywalker in The Force Awakens and in promotional materials
for The Last Jedi where he and visually Ray are
standing on an island with ancient looking structures on it.
That is a real island, that's not a set, and
(01:08):
those structures are also not sets that were built for
the film. They are part of a real thing that
is ancient Skelling Michael. The island where those scenes were
shot is 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 the
more modern things that have been built on the island.
(01:30):
Um So, since I have Star Wars rabies and I
can barely manage to contain myself while I wait for
the Last Jedita premiere, uh, and because this really is
a legitimately very very interesting uh historical site, I thought
it might be fund 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
(01:52):
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 Worst talk except a
story about filming at the end, and even that has
nothing to do. So we're not going to spoil anyone
or anything related or no Star Wars. You would have
had to have not gone to see The Force Awakens
(02:13):
yet for that to have been a spoiler, which I
don't know, maybe you didn't, but at this point, if
you haven't gone to see The Force Awakens. Then I
think you would have to have been in media blackout
because it's appeared on so many like magazine covers, television promos. Um.
You know, interviews are often inter cut if you see
(02:34):
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 territory. Well, I think if
you have not yet seen Force Awakens, you probably don't
care about Star Wars spoilers, right, none of which are
(02:54):
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
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 you'll also see Skelling
(03:16):
Michael called the 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
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
(03:37):
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
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
(03:59):
Art hair Ritage 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 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
(04:23):
somewhere between three hundred sixty and three hundred seventy four
million years ago during the Devonian period. When Ireland was
part of a 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.
(04:43):
Skelling Michael also has to twin peaks with a valley
in the middle, which has come to be known as
Christ's Saddle. Uh. And that helipad 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
(05:06):
is for davisits exclusively. And I should also mention that
sometimes if they have had damage in the winter, they
will shorten that window 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
(05:28):
visitors are allowed and no trash can be left behind.
The animals that most commonly benefit from the islands reserve
status are birds. Seabirds often nest there during their respective
breeding seasons. Skelling 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.
(05:49):
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 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
(06:12):
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 and to like in a Colis fungi, that's
enough to classify it as a nationally important site for
like in growth based on a conservation study that was
conducted in two thousand nine to get to more of
(06:34):
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 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,
(06:55):
and the first is the monastery itself, which is built
on the island's east side, high up on sloping areas
of rock. The monastery has 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
(07:15):
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 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
(07:36):
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. The structures within the
monastery included church, two oratories, seven beehive cells, water cisterns
and a cemetery and locked, which I have also heard
(07:57):
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 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,
(08:18):
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. 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, blocked and water cisterns. Steps cut
(08:41):
out of the rock provide access to these structures, which
are described in archaeological stratigraphic report written in twenty eleven
as daringly constructed. I sort of feel that way about
everything on Skellic 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 figared that
I would just fall. It's all very steep. That name
(09:02):
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.
(09:23):
The first known reference to skelling Michael goes all the
way back to se 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.
(09:44):
There's another unverified story of scaling 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 Duach 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 it's
(10:06):
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 known
(10:28):
reference to the monastery is in an annal entry from
the year eight d twenty four which describes a Norse
raid on Skellig Michael. Yeah, there's a lot of disparate
accounts that the 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 in a minute,
(10:49):
suggests that it was already functioning. The position of this
monastery is actually quite well chosen. It's six dred feet
above sea level, and where it sits on the island
in 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 it enabled relatively
(11:12):
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 dred 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. These hives are
(11:35):
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 bees in
baskets that are that shaped like an inverted semi dome
(11:57):
sort of structure. They have a doorway 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 monastery's large oratory, but there are some differences
among them, and the cells are lettered for identification. Yeah,
and just for clarity, um. The cell letter order does
(12:17):
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 GE
was at the end. There completely separate um naming systems.
(12:39):
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 six by three point eight meters,
(13:00):
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 is bigger than B and C,
(13:22):
but smaller than A. It's it's like a word problem
in the S A T S. 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 sleeping area. These cells were
built at various points in time, and they aren't homogeneous
in their size as noted or in the way the
(13:43):
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 part really collapsed and what would have been its roof,
which would have been made of wood, is long gone.
(14:04):
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 the
(14:25):
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, 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 break up. Cells don't
(14:48):
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 a little bit
away from the others, were first referenced in an eighteen
(15:11):
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 study of
the site was ordered by the Office of Public Works.
(15:33):
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 attaining wall, it was about five ft or one
and a half meters high, and that remains intact. The
(15:55):
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 peak on this terrace is a small oratory
with an interior space of seven point five by six
point five feet that's about two point three by two meters,
(16:15):
and this terrace extends far past the oratory to the east,
although it is quite a narrow sort of Terrorists that
you're you're on at that point from the Oratory Terrorists.
The outer terraces used to be reachable via a traverse
that was chiseled from the stone by the monks, but
in modern times it's a place that's really best visited
by skilled climbers and no one else. It's treacherous to
(16:38):
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. Like they're literally basically
(16:58):
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 monastery was dedicated
(17:19):
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 indicates
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 instances of inclement weather
(17:42):
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 Skelligs, 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 that point. It just kind
(18:02):
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 officially closed in the sixteenth
(18:26):
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 the 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 could be built there,
(18:47):
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 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 have another short sponsor break.
(19:19):
Construction of the two lighthouses at Skelling Michael began in
August of eighty one. Inspector George Holpin designed the buildings
in roadway and oversaw initial construction. The lighthouse road runs
from the upper lighthouse site, which is on the western
side of the islands, south to the coast, and then
(19:41):
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 The taller of the two lights was nearly four
hundred feet that's a hu of the high water mark,
with a visibility range of twenty five miles or forty kilometers.
(20:05):
The lower light was a hundred seventy five ft or
fifty three point three meters above the high water mark.
With a visibility range of eighteen miles or twenty nine kilometers.
Both were non moving lights. Uh in a sad note
in 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.
(20:28):
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
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 planted by another lighthouse
(20:51):
north of the Skellic Islands in eighteen seventy. The lower
lighthouse has remained in use. That's still in use today,
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
(21:13):
an ongoing plan for conservation of the site. In nineteen
o nine, the lower lighthouse was renovated and updated with
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
(21:34):
tower was built. The following year, the new lighthouse was online,
boasting another upgrade to one point eight million candles light.
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
(21:57):
me to look at on the the cliff side the
open side of the helipad, it is a one twenty
one ft or thirty seven meter dropped directly into the ocean.
In nineteen seventy eight, Skellig 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
(22:20):
as the project's first order of business. UH. And additionally,
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 also really damaged some of the masonry. Only
(22:42):
one of the three stairways leading to the main monastery
is currently accessible to visitors. In nine eight, 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
(23:02):
seasonally throughout all those re organizations. Yeah, there's a narrow
window winter you can't really go there and do any
sort of excavation UH to examine the ruins because it's
just too cold. UH. In nine eighty one, a project
was completed that had begun in nineteen eight to finally
automate the lighthouse. In nineteen eighty nine, the Commissioners of
(23:24):
Irish Lights sold the island Skelling Michael to the State,
which was already the guardian of the monastery, with the
exception of the remaining active lighthouse and its related structures.
Yeah the Commissioners of Irish Lights still retained that lighthouse
area and then in n Skelling Michael became a UNESCO
World Heritage Site. On October twenty two, two thousand one,
(23:47):
that lighthouse was converted to solar power. A lamp change
which 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
(24:09):
used in the roads restoration. There have been two rescue
operations 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
(24:31):
hundred were saved. The three keepers were awarded one pound
from the Board of Trade and an additional guinea from
the S S. Marina's owner, the Donaldson Line YEP. They
each got that award. On February ninety four, an aircraft
exploded in mid air after colliding with the highest peak
of the island and falling in pieces into the water,
(24:53):
and British aircraft and the lighthouse keepers of Scaling Michael
executed a search, but neither the wreckage nor any survive
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,
(25:15):
criticized Ireland's Minister of Arts for approving 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 kittywake
nests to be disturbed. The down draft from the chopper's
(25:37):
propeller caused some of the chicks to 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 breading season,
although other birds still nesting on the island caused continued
(25:58):
concern on the part of bird Watch Ireland. Bird Watched
Ireland's point of view 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
(26:22):
there is disagreement about how 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 turns 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
(26:43):
on and on. So it's a little hard to parse
out um scaling Michael 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 Hi
writer George Bernard Shaw visited skelling Michael and it made
(27:03):
a very strong impression. He later wrote the following quote,
But for the magic that takes you out far out
of this time, in this world, there is skelling Michael,
ten miles off Carrey 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.
(27:28):
Thanks George Bernard Shaw, Thanks so much for joining us
on this Saturday. Since this episode is out of the archive,
if you heard an email address or Facebook U r
L or something similar over the course of the show
that could be obsolete. Now. Our current email address is
(27:49):
History Podcast at I Heart radio dot com. Our old
house stuff works email address no longer works, and you
can find us all over social media at Missed in History,
and you can subscribe to our show on Apple podcasts,
Google podcast the I heart Radio app, and wherever else
you listen to podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class
(28:12):
is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts
from I heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
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