Skellig Michael
| Skellig Michael | ||
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| Waters | Atlantic Ocean | |
| Archipelago | Skellig Rocks | |
| Geographical location | 51 ° 46 '15 " N , 10 ° 32' 19" W | |
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| length | 842 m | |
| width | 422 m | |
| surface | 21.9 ha | |
| Highest elevation | South Peak 217 m ASL |
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| Residents | uninhabited | |
| main place | (Skellig Monastery) (historical) | |
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The island of Skellig Michael ( Irish : Sceilg Mhichíl , dt. "Michael's Rock"), which is also known under the name of Great Skellig , is home to one of the most famous, but also the most inaccessible medieval monasteries in Ireland .
It was probably founded in the 7th century on the steep, rocky island about 12 kilometers from the Kerry coast . Skellig Michael is about 22 hectares , the highest point is 217 meters on the South Peak . At almost the same height (approx. 180 m ASL ), but on the neighboring northern summit, there is the small former monk settlement, which can be reached via almost 600 steps of a stone staircase without a railing. On the overgrown with sparse greenery and herbs from the time the monk settlement slopes of the island also can rise when the seasons puffins are observed.
In addition to Great Skellig, there is the 7-hectare island of Little Skellig , which is a little closer to the coast and is home to one of the largest gannet colonies in the world with around 27,000 breeding pairs . The Blue Man's Rock is just a few meters off the southeast coast.
Boats commute between the mainland and Skellig Michael every day, allowing interested tourists to visit the monastery, weather permitting, as mooring and disembarking on the rocky quay is not without risk even when the sea is calm. On the way there, Little Skellig is also bypassed. However, the bird island may not be entered.
history
The monks lived in small cells that (in Ireland as stone huts beehive huts " beehive huts called") above steeply sloping cliffs in traditional Irish Dry Wall went way built without mortar. The entire system is very spartan, drinking water was collected in cisterns. On the leeward side of the rock, the monks had set up small garden beds in which they grew vegetables and herbs. Even today, typical garden herbs can be found in deep crevices. Very little is known about the lives of the few monks. Presumably there were exactly twelve monks and an abbot to reproduce the community of the twelve apostles . There was a small hermitage on the particularly steep and inaccessible southern summit .
In 823, Skellig Michael experienced an onslaught of the Vikings , but according to experts, resisted it. Around 1000 a new chapel was built on the site. About a century later the monks gave up Skellig Michael and moved to Ballinskelligs . Around 1500 the island became a destination for regular pilgrimages . In 1826 Skellig Michael received a lighthouse , and in 1986 the restoration of the monastic settlement began, which was put on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1996 .
The isolation of Skellig Michael has deterred large streams of visitors until the release of the Star Wars film Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which also contributed to the preservation. In the meantime, the island has been so overrun by tourists that the fauna has been affected and areas had to be cordoned off. It can be reached in good weather, for example. B. with about 13 people motor boats from the fishing village of Portmagee , which is opposite Valentia Island . Due to the large number of visitors, however, the boats are fully booked one season in advance. Portmagee is also home to the EU- funded “Skellig Experience Center”, which provides other interesting facts about Skellig Michael.
Skellig Michael in Art
The island is one of the settings in the historical crime novel about the nun Fidelma Tod in the scriptorium by Peter Tremayne . The island was a filming location for the films Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Star Wars: The Last Jedi and served as the backdrop for Luke Skywalker's hiding place . Since no filming was possible in the medieval monastery complex, it was partially rebuilt for further recordings on the mainland on the Dingle Peninsula. Songs called "Skellig" were released in 1987 by the Irish band Clannad and in 1997 by the Canadian singer Loreena McKennitt . Part of the plot of the early medieval novel Le remords de Dieu by Marc Paillet also takes place in Skellig Monastery .
Photo gallery
View from Skellig Michael to Little Skellig and the mainland
Partial view of the early Christian monastery complex on Skellig Michael with the typical beehive huts made of granite and an old high cross
Monastery cemetery on Skellig Michael
Stairs to the monastery with a view of Little Skellig
literature
- Walter Horn, Jenny White Marshall, Grellan D. Rourke: The Forgotten Hermitage of Skellig Michael . University of California Press, Berkeley 1990.
Web links
- Entry on the UNESCO World Heritage Center website ( English and French ).
- http://www.skelligexperience.com/skellig_michael.html (English)
- Report from the SWR
Individual evidence
- ^ E. Bourke, AR Hayden, A. Lynch: Skellig Michael, Co. Kerry: The monastery and South Peak. Archaeological stratigraphic report: excavations 1986-2010. Dublin 2011, online ( Memento of the original dated November 5, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 943 kB).
- ↑ Des Lavelle: The Skellig Story . O'Brien Press, Dublin 2004, pp. 37/39.
- ^ W. Horn, J. White Marshall, GD Rourke: The Forgotten Hermitage of Skellig Michael. University of California Press, Berkeley 1990, online
- ↑ Markus Dichmann: Skellig Wars - The battle for an Irish rock. In: Faces of Europe. Broadcast from December 10th, 2016. Deutschlandfunk, accessed on December 10, 2016 .
- ↑ dailymail.co.uk
- ↑ M. Paillet, Le remords de Dieu , Pocket (1993)
Heritage: Archaeological Sites Bend of the Boyne (1993) | Skellig Michael (1996)