Boat operators encircle Skellig Michael to highlight frustrations around island closure
A flotilla of boats has circled Skellig Michael to highlight the 'urgent threat to tourism' caused by the closure of the island.
Skellig Michael, a Unesco World Heritage site, remains closed after
legal action was initiated by three boat operators
who were not awarded permits this year.
The Office of Public Works (OPW), which manages the site, said it could not issue permits
to any of the 15 operators awarded landing rights for the 2025 season because of legal constraints.
The Skellig season runs between early May and late September, weather permitting. Visitor numbers are limited to 180 per day because of the fragile nature of the site.
READ MORE
Demand regularly exceeds the numbers permitted. Skellig Michael has gained in popularity since it featured in Star Wars movies.
James Murphy is organiser and spokesperson for Skellig Coast Tourism, which represents 100 businesses in the region. He said €1 million has already been lost due to inactivity since the passing of the May 10th opening. 'This includes pay for boatmen, accommodation and cafes, and visitor experience,' he said.
Mr Murphy said permits need to be issued by the OPW.
The boat operators set off from Portmagee to Skellig Michael to circle the island, drawing attention to the escalating crisis, he said.
His organisation has no views about who should get the permits.
Last week, the OPW said it had lodged a motion before the High Court seeking permission to issue boat operator permits for Skellig Michael for summer 2025. Successful applicants were picked in a recent competition.
This followed a High Court challenge from unsuccessful participants in the open competition to operate the boat licences.
A date for the High Court to hear the OPW motion to lift the suspension has been assigned for the week of June 3rd.
In December 2024, the OPW published a competition to award 15 permits for summer 2025 and onwards. The number of permits is limited in order to protect the fragile ecosystem of Skellig Michael, it said.
In a statement, the OPW said it had 'contacted applicants in late March 2025 to tell them the outcome of their applications'.
It added: 'Since then, three unsuccessful participants in the competition have brought High Court proceedings challenging the outcome of the competition. The OPW will be fully defending the proceedings.'
Under Irish and EU law, the proceedings brought by three unsuccessful boat operators meant the OPW was prevented from issuing permits for summer 2025. This will remain the case until the proceedings are resolved or unless the High Court gives permission to issue permits, the OPW says.
It continued: 'The OPW is acutely aware of the key role the island plays in the tourism economy of south Kerry and the wider region... No permit can be issued until the High Court gives permission to do so or unless the proceedings are settled.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Journal
7 hours ago
- The Journal
'People's livelihoods at risk': Decision on opening of Skellig Michael to tourists due this week
A HIGH COURT judge will decide this week whether to lift a suspension on boating permits for ferries to and from the UNESCO heritage island Skellig Michael, saying the case requires top priority as 'people's livelihoods are at risk'. The permits have not been issued while legal proceedings are before the courts in the form of a judicial review of the tendering process. At the High Court today, Justice Garret Simons said he was 'staggered' by the assertion made by lawyers for the Office of Public Works (OPW) that it would need six months to prepare the case. He ordered it to be heard next month. Two companies, which were unsuccessful in their applications for the 2025 season, have made a judicial review application, resulting in a delay to the granting of permits. The season runs from May to the end of September. The OPW ran a competition in late 2024 to award 15 boating permits for summer 2025 serving the monastic island, which was chosen as a film location for the Star Wars movies, The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. However, in April 2025, two unsuccessful participants in the competition brought High Court proceedings challenging the outcome. The OPW has said that under Irish and EU law, they were then precluded from issuing permits for the 2025 summer season until legal proceedings were resolved. Advertisement Skellig Michael Boat Trips and Atlantic Endeavour Limited both dispute the process underpinning the granting of the licences, alleging it to be 'deficient' and 'without transparency' and have been granted permission for the challenge. At the High Court today, David Dodd BL, for the plaintiffs, told Justice Simons that nobody wanted to prevent boats from visiting the island. He said permits could be granted by the court in an interim fashion, as the issuing of a one-season permit was not a 'contract', as contended by the OPW. He said his clients are happy for the suspension to be lifted. Justice Simons asked Andrew Beck SC, for the OPW, why it would take six months to prepare for what the judge described as 'the most straightforward case of competition for licences'. Beck said there was discovery of documents needed, amendments to make and a possible issue around cross-examination. Justice Simons said he was 'staggered' that the case would take up to six months to get on and that there were 'livelihoods' at stake. The judge said the court would give the case 'top priority', adding that the court had 'gone out of its way' to facilitate an early trial. Justice Simons said he would rule on Thursday of this week on whether to lift the suspension of the permits. He adjourned the substantive hearing of the judicial review to 21 July. Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Learn More Support The Journal
Irish Times
7 hours ago
- Irish Times
Closure of Bray-Greystones cliff walk has ‘cost the economy €73m'
More than €73 million has been lost to the economy – equating to more than €50,000 a day – because of the continuing closure of the cliff walk between Bray and Greystones , Co Wicklow, economist Jim Power has said. Mr Power, an economic adviser to the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation and a financial commentator, estimated the loss to the economy included €21 million that would have gone to the Exchequer in taxes. The 7km cliff walk, developed in the 1840s as an access route for workers building the railway line, was, until its closure in February 2021, one of the most popular walks on Ireland's east coast. At its highest point it rises to about 100m above sea level. However, following the collapse of a section of boulder clay on the Greystones side and a rockfall further towards Bray, the walk was closed on a temporary basis. READ MORE Wicklow County Council put barriers at either end of the route and advertised an alternative walk, some of which was on the main Bray to Greystones road before climbing the head and emerging at a landmark cross overlooking Bray seafront. However, as time passed and the cliff walk remained closed, local traders expressed concern at the lack of business. 'The closure hit us immediately. I would say we were first in the firing line, and then it hit everyone else,' said Nigel Spendlove, who runs a coffee shop at Greystones harbour. Nigel Spendlove at Spendlove's coffee shop in Greystones. Photograph: Tim O'Brien Claire Cullen, who runs The Fat Fox cafe and cake shop on Trafalgar Road, Greystones, said the closure had cost her '500 customers a week. That is 2,000 customers a month – it is a lot for any business to take'.. Local group Friends of the Cliff Walk commissioned Mr Power to carry out an economic study of the economic cost of the closure. As part of the overall figure of €73 million, Mr Power estimated losses to local shops, restaurants and coffee shops at €4 million, based on yearly spending by walkers of €3.5 million. Speaking to The Irish Times, Mr Power said he had relied on Fáilte Ireland reports on visitor spending, figures for the numbers of people previously walking the cliff walk and his own interviews with businesses in the area among other sources. He said that according to Fáilte Ireland figures overseas visitors would typically spend €105 each a day, domestic visitors would be spending €92 daily and local walkers would spend about €10. He said recent analysis showed 10 per cent of visitors on the walk were from overseas, 40 per cent would be domestic visitors and the rest locals. Using official figures showing 350,000 visitors in the last year the walk was open, the annual spend was €18.4 million. With the walk now closed four years that loss amounted to €73 million overall, he said. He said the impact on the economies of Bray and Greystones has been 'very significant'. 'If we assume the average spend locally is €10 per visitor, the overall spend locally would be €3.5 million. This would support 77 jobs in tourism and hospitality in the local area. Assuming an average wage of €20,000, this would equate to a wage injection of €1.54 million into the local economy,' he said at the launch of his report on Tuesday in Greystones. Wicklow County Council said it was in the process of appointing consultants to advise 'short-term and long-term solutions to address the issues with sections of the walk that have already collapsed or are about to collapse'. The council said it had 'identified unsafe sections, reluctantly closed them, and signposted alternative routes around the collapsed sections of the cliff walk'. It said it was also working to identify funding for the work.
Irish Times
8 hours ago
- Irish Times
Only Our Taxis Run Free - Frank McNally on a funny thing that happened on the way to the Goldsmith Festival
Collecting a rental car to drive to the Goldsmith Festival on Saturday, but running late, I had to get a taxi for a distance I would usually walk and found myself in the company of a very friendly driver from Bangladesh. He'd been in Ireland 19 years and, as I told him, his accent was now located halfway between Dhaka and Dublin. But he had an extraordinarily sunny disposition for a Dublin taximan, which was infectious. As always when meeting people from other parts of the world, I tried to remember all the things I knew about his country, which wasn't many, but enough that the driver seemed delighted about that too. In the back of my unworthy mind, of course, I suspected he was only being friendly in the hopes of a tip. Hence my surprise when we got to the rental car place and he turned the meter off waved away my offers to pay with a smiling 'no charge'. READ MORE Guessing the fare would have been only seven or eight euro, I now determined to throw him a €10 note as I got out. Except I only had a twenty. 'Here – give me a tenner back out of that,' I tried to insist. But still he refused. Humbled, I shook his hand and thanked him, remembering that the talk I had to give later would be under the theme – from The Deserted Village - 'Where wealth accumulates and men decay.' There was one man who was in no danger of decomposition, I thought, as the only Dublin taxi driver ever to give me a freebie drove off. *** On the bill before me in Ballymahon, Professor David O'Shaughnessy discussed 'The Benefits of Goldsmith'. This was a play on words, for while implying that Goldsmith is good for you, O'Shaughnessy's talk turned out to be on the fascinating subject of 18th century theatrical economics, and specifically the 'benefit nights' by which playwrights earned their share of the profits. In the case of his classic comedy, She Stoops to Conquer, those were good for Goldsmith. But the play succeeded against the odds, and even against the hostility of the Covent Garden Theatre manager, George Colman, who didn't want to stage it. With the author too nervous to attend opening night, meanwhile, his friends led by Samuel Johnson organised a counter conspiracy to ensure success. Central to their plot was a man who, according to Johnson's biographer James Boswell, 'was gifted by nature with the most sonorous, and at the same time the most contagious, laugh that ever echoed from the human lungs.' This two-legged hyena was also, however, somewhat deficient in wit, and would not by himself know which bits of the play were funny. So the plan was to wait for Johnson to laugh, whereupon Boswell would nudge the hyena – placed in a box where he would be seen and heard by the whole theatre - into action. It worked well for a while, until the laughing began to draw more attention than the play. Boswell urged his neighbour to tone it down, but it was too late. Having not recognised any jokes at the start, the hyena now found every line hilarious. 'These were dangerous moments, for the pit began to take umbrage,' recalled Boswell, 'but we carried our play through, and triumphed not only over Colman's judgment but our own.' *** I was too late for the Saturday morning tour of Goldsmith Country, which was to include the 'hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade/For talking age and whisp'ring lovers made'. So I'm not sure how confident the guide was – or could be – about whether it was the right bush. The same question arose 125 years ago when William Bulfin did the tour, as later recorded in his travelogue Rambles in Eirinn. Then, his guide was adamant:'Well, that's the hawthorn tree. Some people that doesn't know the differ will tell you that it is the bush there to the left, farther away; and some visitors believes them and marches off with sprigs from the wrong bush. Aren't you going over to get a sprig?' But Bulfin wasn't interested in sprigs because he thought the whole concept of Goldsmith Country existed only in Goldsmith's mind until later relocated to England. He was especially dismissive of the notion that 'Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain' was located anywhere in the Ireland of the Penal Laws. If it was, Bulfin argued, there is no way the villagers could ever have been as happy as Goldsmith remembered them, even before a greedy landlord ruined everything. *** Bulfin wrote some of his Irish dispatches for Arthur Griffith's newspaper Sinn Féin. Which reminds me, too late to mention it the taxi driver, of what must be the most extraordinary fact in the history of Irish-Bangladeshi relations. Namely that in 1930, inspired by events in Dublin 14 years earlier, Bengali rebels staged an uprising against British rule in Chittagong, now Bangladesh's second city. They called themselves the Indian Republican Army (IRA), took over buildings until overwhelmed by superior force, and timed it for Easter, symbolically, even though none of them were Christians. But maybe the taxi driver knew all this already and, by refusing to charge me, was doing his own bit to make Ireland free.
