Sceilg Mhichíl

In my experience, even after having covered the WHS of a continent well, there are always those annoying little islands left at the fringes to ‘tick’. In Europe for example, I am missing St. Kilda, the Vega Islands, even Risco Caido on Gran Canaria! Skellig Michael as well has been a nagging thorn in my side for years, after missing out due to bad weather at my first try in 2019. On August 12 2022, my second attempt was successful.

I booked just 3 weeks before, as I surprisingly found open spots for landing tours available in August. Friday August 12 was forecasted as sunny with winds between 5 and 7 km/h in the morning (I believe anything below 20 km/h is low). I was on the 8.30 departure of the Jerdemar, booked via Skellig Michael Cruises. The boat, just large enough to fit the 12 passengers, has an overhead covering which was a blessing on this sunny day. The boat ride was uneventful and nobody got nauseous or wet.

The first bit of excitement came when we arrived at Little Skellig: this island is just littered with gannets. We observed them for a while from the boat, and we discovered a seal at its coast as well. The bigger Skellig next door, Skellig Michael, looks green in comparison. We started our visit there with a slow circumnavigation of the island. The skipper pointed out the various boat landings and stairwells that are not used anymore. Also, the …

When we departed Portmagee we couldn't yet see the island, just the top. While we made our way the island kept rising from the sea and we felt as if we had entered a fantasy story. Think Mordor in Lord of the Rings.

I had tied me getting tickets for the island to a friend's proposal to join him on a road trip of Ireland. My friend was aware of my peculiar priorities in travel, so he understood. And when we stepped off the boat onto the island, he fully appreciated the efforts I had invested into getting us there.

The island now houses plenty of birds that don't seem care much for those few pesky visitors each day. We got to see plenty of puffins up close. They also left lasting nasty imprints on my rain coat (definitively recommend to bring and wear). Apart from the birds, during visiting season there are also several guides on the island. They will provide some background information on the birds and monks. It's fascinating imagining the monks rowing out to the island and living in their beehives.

To me it's a bit weird that this was inscribed only as cultural site. The remoteness and the landscape were key reasons for the monks to settle here. You also now have a unique bird sanctuary. If this doesn't justify a mixed inscription, I don't know what should. No matter what, this is truly one of the great sites of the list.

I visited this WHS in July 2012 and I was lucky to pick a sunny day in the usually rainy Summer in Ireland. The only way to visit this site is on one of the few fishing boats that have a permit to land 12 passengers each on the remote island. In the past, this WHS was considered to be the most remote place on Earth! After braving the high waves of the Atlantic Ocean for about 50 minutes (one-way), I arrived on Skellig Michael. Close to it is the jagged Little Skellig island with a colony of around 200,000 Northern Gannets. On Skellig Michael, I climbed 600+ steep steps (with no railings) which led to a 6th century "bee-hive" monastery. Hiding in burrows all over the island were thousands of cute Atlantic Puffins, Razorbills and Guillemots and basking in the sun on the rocks were some seals. This WHS is by far my favourite so far even though less famous or grandiose than the Pyramids of Giza, the Taj Mahal or Petra!

The Trip to Skellig Michael is a must see if your visiting Kerry. The views are breath taking on the walk up and even more spectacular on the way down. If your carefull and watch what you are doing at all times the walk up is within the capability of most people. The walk up is a series of stone steps which can be uneven and different sizes and shapes. Care needs to be taken on the steps at all times. My aunts who are in their early 70's walked up all the way to the beehive huts. They took their time with plenty of short stops to catch their breath. My advise about the boat trips would be to do a little searching on the web before booking your boat operator. The shortest route is to go from Portmagee. Most operators take 45 minutes either way from Portmagee, however there is one operator who takes 1 hr and 10 mins from Portmagee as he has a smaller engine boat. He shall remain nameless. If you enjoy a longer boat trip then there's no problem but personally, 45 mins is enough for me on a small boat. Despite what some reviews are saying, I did not get a drop of water on me on the trip out. If it's calm, you will not get wet and the boat operators generally wait for relatively calm sea's because of the problem of docking at the pier.

This is an amazing site to visit, but note that

a) you need a bit of a head for heights, ie if you suffer from vertigo the climb up or more likely the walk down can be pretty scary

b) it's a summer-month thing, between May to September are the only possibilities and even then you need to be lucky with the weather to get a day when the boats can actually land on the island.

I accessed it via the village of Portmagee which is just off the Ring Of Kerry - like others on this site I heard great things about Des Lavelle (who is a local historian and who is based there) and therefore pre-booked with him, by phone - however when we showed up the day before they claimed not to have heard of us and to be fully booked out, wasn't too impressed with them therefore.

However there are plenty of operators in the village (do book in advance in the high season though) and the local bar/hotel/restaurant The Moorings is simply great for a pint, some traditional music and a plate of fish and chips

My experience of visiting this site was absolutely fantastic, visiting World Heritage sites can take to the end of the earth, which is almost literally where Skellig Michael was when it was first inhabited. It was to these monastic retreats on the edge of Europe that the western Christian church effectively retreated to after the fall of Rome.

Skellig Michael is the larger of the two Skellig Islands situated some 12km off the coast of County Kerry, and it is home to a small monastery founded in the seventh century. The bulk of the monastery is on one of the islands two peaks and consists of a few small enclosures and several beehive cells (pictured)which the monks lived in year round. Whilst the remains are not massive they are impressive and more considerable than I imagined them to be. It is their setting that makes them spectacular though, they are perched atop a rather large stone hill surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean.

This setting also makes them a fair challenge to get to, the climb from the base of the island is much more precarious than I had imagined, though the accompaniment of a few puffins made it more enjoyable. The dry-stone stair way meanders up the side of the island, at times leaving only sheer cliffs between you and the Atlantic, and as it was originally laid some 1000 years ago it does not provide such modern luxuries as guard rails. This is not a climb I would recommend …

Skellig Michael is a tiny island and you have to go there by a small boat, the joutney takes about an hour and the prize is a steep 35 euro but I manged to get it down to 20. The island rises 240m from the sea and you have to climb stairs all the way up to top to visit the very well preserved monastery.

Skellig Michael is inscribed by UNESCO as a cultural heritage but the natural beauty and the wildlife is even more stunning. Puffins and other birds have their nests everywhere on the island. They dive out from the cliffs and seems not scared at all by the humans.

There is a lot of tourists on the island even with the remoteness and the high cost to get there. But it still is a very special and beautiful site, one of my favorites so far.

i discovered skellig michael in the fall of 97 while taking a Xan celtic spirituality class at the GTU in berkeley CA...the island of liminality haunted me; i wrote my paper for this class on skellig; it is my "place of resurrection."..in aug 99 i visited skellig--it is so much more than any book can describe or even my fertile imagination! the isolation, the stark beauty, the darkness of a beehive cell, the tiny steps carved into and from the rock itself....connected. One...certainly a holy, sacred place....the rock face that once held "the spit" was not open to pilgrims, i am sad to say....it was a warm (for anywhere, but especially for ireland) day, so i could only imagine what skellig must feel like in cold, pouring irish rain in winter....it was very hard to leave such a magnificent place....i can only imagine what skellig is like under a full moon or a new moon with the sky filled with stars...i wonder how disorienting those steps are in fog and clouds.....i would love to be get permission to stay overnight on skellig...

be prepared if you go--to layer for warmth (it was so warm that, within ten minutes of being on the island, the german tourists and i had stripped down to next to nothing). also wear comfortable hiking boots...AND don't drink lots of water before or during the skellig experience; there is no toilet, loo, or bathroom! reclaim the hydration at the first pub when you return to land