Skellig Michael

Where it sits. Skellig Michael — Sceilig Mhichíl, the splinter of rock named for the archangel — rises out of the open Atlantic about 11.6 kilometres west of the Iveragh Peninsula in County Kerry, past its smaller twin Little Skellig. It is a twin-peaked crag of Old Red Sandstone and compressed slate covering roughly 22 hectares, thrown up with the MacGillycuddy's Reeks some 360 to 374 million years ago and left offshore when sea levels rose. The south-west summit, called the Spit, reaches 218 metres; the north-east peak that carries the monastery stands around 185 metres. Between them lies the depression the monks called Christ's Saddle, at 129 metres, eroded along a north–south fault where the rock was more brittle than its surroundings.

The monastery. The monastic settlement was founded somewhere between the sixth and eighth centuries and clings to a terraced shelf about 170 to 180 metres above the sea. It holds six corbelled dry-stone beehive cells, one of them collapsed, two boat-shaped oratories, a monks' graveyard studded with plain incised crosses, and the later St Michael's Church, built of mortared stone with sandstone ferried across from Valentia Island. Scholars estimate the community never exceeded about twelve monks and an abbot. The annals record a Viking raid in 823, when the abbot Etgal was carried off and died of hunger. Occupation continued until the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, when the community withdrew to the abbey at Ballinskelligs, though pilgrims kept coming for centuries afterwards.

The steps and the hermitage. Three landing coves — Blind Man's Cove to the east, Cross Cove to the south, Blue Cove to the north — each feed a flight of stone steps cut and built by the earliest monks. The south steps, the ones visitors climb today, merge with the north flight at Christ's Saddle before the final rise to the monastery. A second, far harsher site sits below the south peak: a hermitage of terraces and retaining walls reached by rock-cut steps that thread through the Needle's Eye, a chimney in the rock about 150 metres up. It is closed to general visitors, and for good reason — the approach is exposed, unprotected and hit by winds that can approach hurricane strength.

On screen. The island became Ahch-To, the ocean world where Luke Skywalker hid himself, and it carries more Star Wars footage than any other Irish location:

• The Force Awakens (2015) closes on the island — Rey climbing the monastic steps and holding out the lightsaber, shot on location in 2014.
• The Last Jedi (2017) returned in September 2015 for the Ahch-To exteriors; Luke's hut interiors and the caretakers' village were built elsewhere, including a full replica of the beehive huts on the Dingle Peninsula.
• The Rise of Skywalker (2019) used aerial footage of the crag.
• Long before any of it, Werner Herzog filmed the closing sequence of Heart of Glass (1976) here.

Conservation bodies objected to filming because of nesting storm petrels and Manx shearwaters, and the shoots were monitored while under way.

Getting there, honestly. This is the hardest-won destination in Ireland. Landings are licensed by the Office of Public Works and capped at 180 visitors per day, spread across a small number of permitted boats; the island receives roughly 11,000 visitors a year in total. Boats leave in the morning from Portmagee, Ballinskelligs, Derrynane and Knightstown on Valentia Island, and the crossing takes about 45 minutes to an hour on a small vessel with no shelter. The season runs from mid-May to the start of October. Sailings are cancelled routinely — the sea around the crag takes swell generated by distant Atlantic depressions, and waves can break ten metres over the pier even when the mainland looks calm. Book a boat months ahead and give yourself several spare days.

What a visit is like. The whole trip runs about six hours, of which roughly two and a half are spent ashore. Around 600 steps lead to the monastery, steep, uneven and entirely without handrails; guides stationed on the island brief every group at the landing and refuse the climb in wet or windy conditions. There are no toilets, no shop, no shelter and no water. Puffins nest in burrows across the slopes from April to early August and are startlingly unbothered by people, sharing the path with razorbills, fulmars and about fifty grey seals below.

Timing. June and July give the best combination of settled weather, long light and full seabird colonies. September crossings are quieter but cancellations climb steeply. The Kerry Cliffs above Portmagee and the Skellig Ring road give a free, weatherproof view of both islands for anyone whose sailing is called off.