Getting to Ireland's UNESCO treasure Skellig Michael was like a Star Wars saga

Irish Daily Mirror

26-07-2025

There's a case to be made that Maureen Sweeney was the most important Irish person in history.
If you don't know, Maureen was the Kerry weather woman who won the war.
Her innate west of Ireland grasp of isobars and wind directions saved the D-Day landings from being one of history's most spectacular military catastrophes.
Without Maureen's weather forecast from Blacksod Bay in Co Mayo in June 1944, the invasion and liberation of Europe would have crashed and burned and, as the gag goes, we'd all be speaking German.
If we were, we would probably be speaking a lot about 'Das Wetter' appropriately enough - or the Weather if you prefer.
It's our one true national conversation. And recently it has become my mild obsession and the reason I found myself sitting in a Killarney hotel room earlier this month channelling my inner Maureen Sweeney.
In recent weeks I had become a citizen forecaster, looking up wind speeds, 'falling slowly' pressure systems and high tides.
The madness is fuelled by another slight obsession. In the morning I'm due to embark on my fourth attempt to set foot on Ireland's mystical national treasure island, Skellig Michael.
The Skelligs have long held an allure. The two islands form the jagged edge of Europe and are among the most breathtaking landscapes on earth.
Skellig Michael also has a rich human story dating back over a thousand years to a group of mad monks who somehow decided it was the perfect place to build one of the most unlikely settlements in human history. A modern equivalent might be setting up home on Pluto.
The islands also provide a sanctuary for 80,000 gannets and a haven for one of nature's rock stars, the Puffin. A puffin guards its nest on Skellig Michael (Image: Irish Mirror)
For centuries their mystique has captured the imagination of poets, artists, storytellers and moviemakers. Most recently as a location in the Star Wars saga.
But if the monks found it hard to get there in the 6th century, my own pilgrimage has honoured their perseverance - not to mention the islands' recent movie heritage.
Episode I: In 2017 a first attempt fell foul of a ticket sellout. Just 180 people can land on Skellig a day from May to September.
Episode II: Last summer we stayed for three days in the village of Portmagee, the gateway to the Skelligs, our landing tickets secured well in advance. But on the morning of our departure a two-metre Atlantic swell made docking on the small island jetty treacherous. We headed out in hope but by the time we crossed the 12 kilometres to Skellig Michael the OPW had closed the island.
Episode III: Having booked again this summer I opened my email inbox one morning to see I had been snared in the phantom menace of a High Court injunction. My boat operator was one of two that had been refused a licence for the season, sparking a legal battle which stopped all access for several weeks.
Episode IV: Not to be deterred, I rebooked with a company that did have a licence. The court injunction eventually lifted like an Atlantic front. And so now here I was sitting in a Killarney hotel room ready to embark in a few hours.
Then another email landed.
It darkly warned of a high tide that meant the OPW was leaving any decision on opening the island until 10am tomorrow..
Following a restless night's sleep I awoke to grey skies and sheets of west Kerry rain. I drove the 75 minutes to Portmagee but about 10 minutes out another e-mail dropped: 'Unfortunately today's landing tour has been cancelled by the OPW as conditions at the island are not good enough for visitors.' Skellig Michael (Image: PA Photo/Nick McAvaney)
With a mood as black as the rain I parked and strolled down to the harbour to look uselessly at the boats. By chance, or fate, the boatman from my cancelled crossing was also there.
He looked disconsolate too. If cancelled crossings are frustrating to tourists, they can be existential to those whose livelihoods depend on them. But when he discovered I was a 'party of one' he brightened and said, 'I've one spare seat tomorrow and looking at the forecast we will 100 percent be going, do you want it?'
One hundred percent eh? By now I had learned that was no such thing when playing poker with the Atlantic.
A quick conflab back to my Killarney HQ confirms the other half has no problem spending another day in the spa or around the town. So I book again for the next day. Episode V.
Later that evening I've got mail again:
'Tomorrow's landing tour is… GOING AHEAD AS PLANNED (I added the Trumpian all caps).
The following morning I am back on the road to Portmagee, casting anxious looks at the sky and the clock as I drive. Then, rounding a Ring of Kerry bend outside Caherciveen, the traffic suddenly grinds to a halt. Garda checkpoint.
I run through a quick panicked checklist to remind myself I'm not wanted by the law and haven't had a drink in about 12 hours. Irish island made famous by Star Wars is under attack by drones
The bored Garda stares quizzically at the windscreen.
'Your tax?'
'Yeah?'
'It's two months out of date.'
Now, to anyone who knows my approach to the 'to do' list, this is akin to Noddy Holder forgetting 'It's Christmas'.
But somehow he's right. No tax. I laugh ruefully thinking he is going to impound me here 10 miles from my destiny.
He must see the uncomprehending look on my face. In the manner of Obi Wan Kenobi, my air seems to persuade him I am not the lawbreaker he is looking for today. I'm sent on my way with the instruction to get it sorted.
A short while later I'm back on the pier in Portmagee where the atmosphere has transformed since yesterday.
Boatmen are busy checking equipment and tickets. Excited tourists from all across the globe are realising their numbers have come up in this little Skellig lottery. It is the first sailing in five days. And one of few at all so far this troubled season.
We set out from the harbour and within minutes are past the shelter offered by the rugged Iveragh peninsula.
After around 40 minutes the jagged beauty of the Small Skellig lies before us. OPW reveal its most popular tourist attractions in Ireland
The sky is dark with swooping gannets and furiously flapping puffins. It's an opera of natural sound that confirms you are now far from what Samuel Beckett called the 'fatuous clamour' of the world.
A few minutes later our boat is bobbing in front of Skellig Michael itself -a shock of green vegetation on sheer cliffs after the blackness of its little sibling.
Then, after several years and five attempts, just like that we are docked and ashore. We begin the pilgrims' climb up the 600 feet and 618 steps to the monastery which sits in the shelter of one of the island's two towering peaks. There is a climb of 618 steps to the monastery at the top of Skellig Michael (Image: Irish Mirror)
Despite warnings, I've no difficulty with the arduousness of the climb. Mostly as it's impossible not to stop every three steps to take in the 360-degree beauty around you.
There is also the distracting sense that the hills are literally alive. Inches from your face on the plunging slopes there are nesting puffins everywhere.
And hidden beneath the defiant foliage that clings to the rock are their constantly cooing chicks. There are so many that the island surface literally seems to breathe and murmur.
This stairway to the heavens that follows in the footsteps of the monks is not for the faint of heart. You will need your head for heights.
At the dizziest spots there are some chain rails. But the steps most of the way are open on one side and the walls of the cliffs plunge away to the sea just feet away from where you step. I feel an unusual sensation, gratitude to the OPW for closing the island during yesterday's heavy rain.
At the top, the first sight of the iconic beehive huts made famous by monks and movies appear as only the supporting cast to the extraordinary vista of the Atlantic, Small Skellig, the Blasket islands and Kerry beyond. Neil Leslie at Skellig Michael (Image: Irish Mirror)
It's not hard to let your imagination conjure what those sixth century holy men might have felt.
They surely thought here was a place close to the heavens. To their west was the edge of the known world, the horizon of God's own country.
There are wild places and wonders that often disappoint some visitors. I've heard them at the Cliffs of Moher or the Giant's Causeway complaining: 'Is that it?'
My own philosophy is that you sometimes need to sprinkle a little of the magic dust of your own imagination. To help the majesty of it all along with an inner sense of awe.
But Skellig Michael does all the work itself. If you're not impressed by the sculpted beauty, or the epic ingenuity of its human story, or the wildlife…you may need to check yourself for a pulse.
Later on the return to Portmagee I watch the rocky pyramid perfectly framed from the back of the boat like the end credit sequence in a movie.
I feel no need for another episode. Once you visit somewhere like Skellig it stays visited. Like the monks who left their bones layered on top of the 385 million year old sandstone, you leave a little something of yourself behind too.
And in exchange you take away a small part of that allure that brought you there. Something 'of the silence of which the universe is made' to quote that man Beckett again.
The only sequel required now is a pint of Ireland's other UNESCO treasure at the Moorings Bar in Portmagee.
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