The Impossible Rock

I slept surprisingly well the night before our ascent of Skellig Michael, partly because my king bed in our bed and breakfast suite was like sleeping on a cloud and partly because we had ended our night with the obligatory stout test (a tasting contest between Murphy’s, Beamish, and Guinness), and stout, as any vintage Guinness ad will tell you, is universally good for your health. Problems with weak bones, a sniffle, insomnia, nutritional deficiencies? A pint or two of the black stuff will set you right up.

The proprietors of our bed and breakfast were possibly the most adorable pair of elderly Irish people I have ever met. They fully lived up to the stereotype of bed-and-breakfast owners, hovering over our home-cooked breakfast, patting our hands, worrying that our room wasn't warm enough, and intimating that they wished we could stay longer. Yet, sadly, we could not: there was a monolith to climb.

In case you care to try it yourself one day, I will provide some details of the journey to securing a place on an outgoing boat so early in the year. Most Skellig boat trips don't run in earnest until may at least, but it was early April and I was determined. I badgered every boat owner between Portmagee and Waterstown until, in an eleventh-hour twist of luck, a boatman called Des responded, saying that there were spots on his boat for that very Saturday morning. We were in business and were bundled into his (surprisingly small) dinghy with the prow pointed out to sea before you could say Saint Brendan.

Des was "the real intelligentsia" according to our B&B owners, and thusly he did not do the driving on the boat. Rather, a crusty old sea dog by the name of Captain Sharkey, clad in a tattered pair of foulies and swearing under his breath, came leaping to the helm right before departure and cast off, kicking at the befuddled francophone friends who served as our companions on the voyage. The boat leapt over massive waves like a steeplechase racer and walls of water shot up into the meager hold, soaking half of my body and sizzling against the engine-heated bench seat. It was exhilarating.

The boat trip out was approximately two hours of watching clear gray waves roll by inches from our noses. I ate up every minute of it with a ladle. The wheelhouse on the boat blocked the view of our approach to the Skelligs, but we could tell we were getting close when stark white gannets started diving into the water surrounding our boat.

Small Skellig washed by in a wave and suddenly we were docking at Blind Man's Cove, which is ominously named and looks like this:

The boat pitched and reeled, a yard up and a yard down like a cork on the tide, as Captain Sharkey made a mad leap for the moss-slick steps and secured the dancing boat to a cleat. He shouted explicit instructions for our proper disembarkation which nobody heeded, and by some miracle and no small measure of boosting the seven occupants of the boat were somehow propelled safely onto the pier. Doing so was surely the most dangerous part of the entire experience, as leaping from boat to land required one to time the roll of the boat perfectly with their upper-leg flexibility and availability of clear step. Anyhow, we all made it, and took off for the stairs.

There are three sets of steps, monk-built and over one thousand years old, that wind up the cliffsides of Skellig Michael, but as a safety precaution the initial salt-sprayed tier has been reconstructed to facilitate an emergency helicopter pad, a covered breezeway to protect from landslides, and reinforced paths to preserve the integrity of the local bird nesting areas. It wasn't puffin season so we sadly did not see any of those merry little fellas, but there were a number of interesting species of kittiwake, cormorant, and storm petrel to observe. Walking through gates of bright red caution chain and paved paths, it was hard to believe that we were actually there, on the rock itself, following in the echoes of footsteps of the original twelve monks to brave the waves in a rowboat in search of the Divine.

Then, we rounded a corner to see the steps, older than many languages, older than nations and names and the square sail, reaching up into thin air, as they have been for   hundreds and hundreds of years. They were uneven and imprecise but sound, securely balanced on one another in an interlocking chain that has lasted longer than some of history's greatest empires.

Sorry for waxing sappy, but it was awe-inspiring.    

Our group had spread out, taking photographs and staring out to sea in wonder. Being both brash and giddy I charged ahead, snapping pictures at will and generally being amazed. Once more pictures will do far more satisfying justice to the experience than my prose, which would surely continue to be inadequate and pedantic.

As I was ascending the first set of vertical steps, I was somewhat surprised to see a figure, human though shrouded in mist, come ambling down the steps from the point high in the clouds where the stairs disappeared. Somewhat, I say, because I would not have been overly astonished if the figure had turned out to be an apparition, some long-dead monk still haunting the rock on which he had eked out a holy living for most of his thirty long years. Such is the timeless, ethereal nature of Skellig Michael. Instead this form from the heavens materialized into a portly gentleman, getting on in years and clad in foulie waterproof clothes and a dew-specked tam o'shanter. When our paths met near the top of the stair he gave me a warning to watch my footing before shambling on down to Aunt Rita and the rest of the climbers. It was eventually discovered that he was a park ranger of sorts, who somehow rode the rollers out to Great Skellig before the clumps of hardy pilgrims were even awake. It was, however, only his third day on the job, and only his third time climbing Skellig Michael- a more enigmatic mountain guide you'd be unlikely to find.

I soon made it to Christ's Saddle, the valley hanging between the two peaks of the rock. One trail darted off to the South peak, at the top of which one could barely make out the stone shelter and water basin used by monks craving an extra degree of isolation from their fellow men. Exposed to the merciless elements, this hermitage is deemed far too dangerous a destination for even the most prepared of pilgrims, including those who come with rappelling gear, crampons, and safety harnesses; I can't imagine how difficult it must have been for seventh-century monks to reach. Since the hermitage was closed, the trail was also, and the flight of steps climbing to the settlement around the base of the north peak was the path I followed.

When approaching the monastery on Skellig Michael, one passes through a series of tunnels built from the same ancient masonry as the steps. One has to duck low to fit through a series of doorways until suddenly one steps into the labyrinthine courtyard of the monastery.

It’s suddenly sheltered and silent. The brisk sea wind is filtered through a peaceable herd of beehive huts (locally known as clocháns) that have stared out to the open ocean for fifteen hundred years. High walls keep the weather out and the silence in; a pamphlet shoved at me by Captain Sharkey listed them as two meters thick, a figure that becomes extremely impressive when it is considered that they were constructed by hand, on the perilous edge of a rock seven hundred feet above the crashing sea. Among the gathered huts is a small graveyard, with a towering cross slanting over it against the gale. Buried there among the bones of the monks are the two sons of one of the lighthouse keepers of Skellig Michael. They are guarded by the stunning Church of Saint Michael, a larger clochán built as a roof for communal worship during the last centuries of Great Skellig’s occupation.

Another distance above the main monastery is the Garden Terrace, a flat field whereon it is projected the monks grew vegetables to supplement their diet of seafowl and eggs, both of which must have been difficult to catch. The terrace affords amazing views of Small Skellig, the mainland, and the infinite horizon to the West.

Lastly, at the top of the North peak, there is a smooth slope of rock upon which the breathless pilgrim can sit and ponder vastness.

Atop the highest accessible point on Great Skellig, a few feet from a sheer drop into the sea, surrounded by seabirds and wind and little else, Bernard Shaw’s words came to mind: this is “the most fantastic and impossible rock in the world.” By peering over the edge of the rock I could see straight down to the pinpricks of the boats waiting below. Another angle showed the abandoned lighthouse wedged onto the side of the rock sometime during the eighteenth century (and frequently remodeled thereafter). These boats and this lighthouse were the few things within view that had changed within the past millennium; humans had come to the rock seeking God, had tirelessly pieced together a life twelve miles of open ocean distant from their fellow man, and had worshiped there without interruption for six hundred years. The ravages of Vikings forced the monks back into the fold of the mainland, but the rock remained a sight of spiritual significance after. It’s surrounded by legend to make up for the secretive half-millennium that transformed it from lonely monolith to majestic cathedral; the Milesian Ir, for whom Ireland is named, is said to be buried there. Ancient kings sought sanctuary there during wars, and nobody is quite sure which saint founded the abbey- was it Fionan or Enda? While it was occupied, young couples would make the perilous voyage to Great Skellig to be married during Lent- it was verboten for them to marry on the mainland during these forty days and nights, but the monks of Skellig Michael were exempt from this rule. Even after the monks left, pilgrims performed the Way of the Cross from Blind Man’s Cove up to the peak. During World War II, a pair of fighter pilots were killed when their plane was blown into the rock during a storm. Still today serious injuries and even a handful of deaths are not unheard of among visitors to the rock.

Eventually, it was time to begin our descent, which turned out to be significantly more perilous for some climbers. A pair of our French boatmates went down on their behinds, step by step. Thankfully the conditions were such that the steps weren’t wet in the slightest, and it was only in retrospect that I realized how potentially dangerous the walk down had been. In the moment, I had been too astounded by everything I saw.

The boat ride back took us past Small Skellig and its snowy coating of gannets. The birds blizzarded overhead and provided a harsh score of cackling calls as they dived. Gannets are much like college-aged men: nice to look at, but when many live together things start to smell a bit rank. Still, it boggled the mind to see that number of birds clinging to the crevices of a monolith, struggling to survive in a miniature version of the monks’ travails.

Our boat trip back was understandably cold and I must say my feet were glad to feel the heater in our car-for-hire as we breezed back to Cork. Skellig Michael was the perfect conclusion to an epic trip ‘round the island and undoubtedly one of the most amazing experiences I’ve had the pleasure of partaking in. I still can’t quite put into words the incredible aura one feels in the presence of the impossible rock; so, I’ll just bombard you with some more pictures.

Until our next chapter!