Skellig Michael

IslandsCounty Kerry,Ireland

An Atlantic pinnacle rising 218 metres from the sea off Ireland, where monks cut 618 steps and lived in dry-stone beehive cells for six centuries.

September·Edge of season

Sep

The last landings before the end-of-September close — quieter on the steps, whales and gannets still offshore, but Atlantic systems are back and September carries the year's highest chance of a weather cancellation.

Year-round The monastery and its 618 steps stand all year, but the seabirds and the boats are seasonal: landings run from mid-May to September only.

Skellig Michael's monks cut 618 steps up a bare Atlantic pinnacle and lived on the ledge at the top for as much as six hundred years. The rock rises 218 metres from the sea about 12 kilometres off the Kerry coast, twin-peaked, with almost no flat ground on it. Sometime between the sixth and eighth centuries perhaps a dozen men settled the terrace below the lower summit and raised six beehive cells and two oratories from dry stone, laid without mortar and watertight still. Having no spring, they channelled rainwater into cisterns and grew barley in soil carried up by hand. The first firm record of them is grim: in 824 Viking raiders took the abbot Étgal, who starved in captivity. Around 1200 the monks gave up and moved ashore to Ballinskelligs, beaten by a colder, stormier Atlantic. The higher peak still holds a hermitage pilgrims once climbed to. The 45-minute crossing from Portmagee happens only when the sea allows: 15 licensed boats carry 12 passengers each, so at most 180 people land in a day, and swell keeps out half the sailings. Landings run from mid-May to the end of September; the rest of the year the island belongs to the birds. Ashore you get about two and a half hours. The steps are steep, wet and unrailed — after two visitors died in 2009 a review decided against adding handrails — and puffins whirr out of burrows at knee height as you climb. At the top, among the stone huts, the wind drops and the ocean runs unbroken to the horizon, while Little Skellig stands white opposite under some 30,000 pairs of gannets. Since the island played Luke Skywalker's refuge in two Star Wars films, visitor numbers have run past what its managers call sustainable, and the rock is watched more closely than ever.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Book the earliest date of your trip, not the last — sailings sell out months ahead, and a weather cancellation brings a refund, not another date, so an early slot leaves you a second chance.
It is the swell, not the wind, that decides — a calm, sunny morning can still be unlandable if the ocean is heaving at the pier, and the open crossing turns stomachs, so come prepared.
Coming down is the harder half — the steps are wet, uneven and edged by sheer drops with nothing to hold, so wear shoes with real grip and take the descent slowly. No under-12s.
Never step off the path — the slopes are honeycombed with nesting burrows and a single boot through the roof of one destroys it.
If you cannot land, take an 'eco' cruise instead — these need no permit, run from spring to autumn, and pass right under Little Skellig's gannet cliffs, which nobody is allowed to set foot on.

Things to do

1
Climb the 618 steps the monks cut
Six hundred and eighteen hand-cut steps lift you 180 metres above the sea, and the wind gets louder with every one of them. Most of the way is a stairway pinned to a bare slope with nothing beside it. Puffins nest in burrows right along the route and show almost no fear, standing a metre away while you catch your breath, coming and going in a blur of orange feet. At the top the wind drops and you step out onto the monks' terrace, among six dry-stone beehive cells and two oratories that have stood for more than a thousand years.
2
Stand inside a beehive cell
Duck through a low doorway into a dome of stacked stone, each ring of rock stepping a little further inward until it closes overhead. There is no mortar holding any of it together, yet it has stayed dry inside for more than a thousand years of Atlantic weather.
3
Look across at Little Skellig's white cliffs
From the monastery terrace the sister rock rises three kilometres away, so thickly covered in gannets that it looks snow-capped. Watch long enough and you see the birds folding their wings and dropping into the sea like thrown spears.
4
Cross the open Atlantic from Portmagee
The small boat leaves the harbour and within minutes there is nothing but ocean and swell for forty-five minutes. The island grows from a grey tooth on the horizon into a wall of rock above the bow, and the noise of the seabird colonies reaches you before the pier does.

Watch

Nearby

154 km

Cliffs of Moher

Clare,Ireland