WEBVTT - SYMHC Classics: Skellig Michael 0:00:02.440 --> 0:00:05.680 Happy Saturday, everybody. Uh St Patrick's Day is just around 0:00:05.680 --> 0:00:08.880 the corner. We always get requests for Irish history, so 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:11.520 we've decided to pull a little bit out of the archive. 0:00:11.960 --> 0:00:15.000 This is our episode on Skelling Michael. And although we 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:17.759 chose this episode because of Skelling Michael's use as a 0:00:17.840 --> 0:00:21.159 Star Wars filming location, it is also the site of 0:00:21.200 --> 0:00:25.760 one of Ireland's early Christian monastic sites. This episode originally 0:00:25.800 --> 0:00:34.519 came out December six, so enjoy Welcome to Stuff You 0:00:34.520 --> 0:00:44.440 missed in History Class, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello, 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:47.040 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frying and I'm 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:50.839 Tracy Wilson. If you're a Star Wars fan, and frankly 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:54.320 even if you're not, you have probably seen scenes of 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:57.800 Luke Skywalker in The Force Awakens and in promotional materials 0:00:57.800 --> 0:01:00.720 for The Last Jedi where he and visually Ray are 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:04.040 standing on an island with ancient looking structures on it. 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:08.200 That is a real island, that's not a set, and 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:10.800 those structures are also not sets that were built for 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:13.640 the film. They are part of a real thing that 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:17.080 is ancient Skelling Michael. The island where those scenes were 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:20.080 shot is a historic site with a fascinating history all 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:22.760 its own. It's also got kind of a nice juxtaposition 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:25.520 because a big chunk of its history is is much older, 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:27.200 and then there's a newer history of some of the 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:30.360 more modern things that have been built on the island. 0:01:30.959 --> 0:01:34.399 Um So, since I have Star Wars rabies and I 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:36.680 can barely manage to contain myself while I wait for 0:01:36.720 --> 0:01:39.319 the Last Jedita premiere, uh, and because this really is 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:43.600 a legitimately very very interesting uh historical site, I thought 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:45.720 it might be fund to delve into this location in 0:01:45.760 --> 0:01:49.040 its rich history for the podcast. Yeah, if you were 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:52.200 concerned based on the number of times that we said 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:54.600 the Last Jedi, we're not going to be talking about 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:57.800 anything in the movie at all on the island at all. 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:01.000 That's pretty much all the Star Worst talk except a 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:04.080 story about filming at the end, and even that has 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:06.639 nothing to do. So we're not going to spoil anyone 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:11.160 or anything related or no Star Wars. You would have 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:13.239 had to have not gone to see The Force Awakens 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:16.560 yet for that to have been a spoiler, which I 0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:19.120 don't know, maybe you didn't, but at this point, if 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:22.080 you haven't gone to see The Force Awakens. Then I 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:24.160 think you would have to have been in media blackout 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:31.399 because it's appeared on so many like magazine covers, television promos. Um. 0:02:31.440 --> 0:02:34.440 You know, interviews are often inter cut if you see 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:38.280 them on television with shots of this island. So it's 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:40.720 I don't think we're giving anything away. I feel confident 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:45.760 that we have skirted any territory. Well, I think if 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:50.440 you have not yet seen Force Awakens, you probably don't 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:54.960 care about Star Wars spoilers, right, none of which are 0:02:54.960 --> 0:02:57.000 in here anyway. We are literally just talking about the 0:02:57.040 --> 0:02:59.640 history of this. I want to be very clear, Okay. 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:02.800 Skelling Michael is one of two islands that make up 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:07.240 the Skellic Islands. The word skelling derives from the Irish 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:10.640 word for steep rock. And then the other island is 0:03:10.639 --> 0:03:12.720 the smaller one of the two. It's called Little Island 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:16.120 and it's closed to visitors. Sometimes you'll also see Skelling 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:19.919 Michael called the Great Skelling Yep. Also you'll see it 0:03:19.960 --> 0:03:22.360 spelled in various different ways. We're going with kind of 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:27.440 the most basic, uh globally facing spelling that gets used 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:31.679 a lot. It's probably the americanized spelling that's just the 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:33.440 scoop on that. If you see it spelled a different way, 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:37.680 that's why. And Skelling Michael is uh seven miles that's 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:40.720 eleven point six kilometers west of the edge of Ireland's 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:44.880 Eva Peninsula in County Kerry, and the highest elevation of 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:47.640 the island is seven hundred and fifteen feet that's about 0:03:47.640 --> 0:03:50.840 two hundred and eighteen meters And this island is tiny. 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:53.720 It is less than a square mile in area, so 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:59.200 if you do hectares, that's nine hectares. The Minister for 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:02.840 Art hair Ritage and the Geltacht owned Skelling Michael on 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:06.280 behalf of the Irish people. And there's also a lighthouse 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:08.680 and support buildings for the lighthouse on the southern end 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:10.920 of the island, as well as a helipad, and this 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:13.640 portion of the island falls outside of the ownership arrangement 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:15.720 mentioned above. We'll get a little bit more into that 0:04:15.760 --> 0:04:19.279 in a bit. The geological makeup of Skelling Michael is 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:23.359 what's called old red sandstone, sedimentary layers of rock deposited 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:26.560 somewhere between three hundred sixty and three hundred seventy four 0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:29.880 million years ago during the Devonian period. When Ireland was 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:34.120 part of a much larger continent. It's the westernmost European 0:04:34.240 --> 0:04:38.200 instance of Devonian sandstone, which can be found throughout Britain 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:42.680 and Ireland, Scandinavia and Greenland. It's also in portions of Canada. 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:47.680 Skelling Michael also has to twin peaks with a valley 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:49.560 in the middle, which has come to be known as 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:54.159 Christ's Saddle. Uh. And that helipad that we mentioned briefly 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:56.960 is for emergencies only. That's not a standard way to 0:04:56.960 --> 0:05:00.320 get on and off the island or special cases. Um. 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:03.520 So from the middle of May to September, visitors may 0:05:03.560 --> 0:05:06.560 travel to Skelling Michael, but only by boat, and it 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:09.719 is for davisits exclusively. And I should also mention that 0:05:09.800 --> 0:05:11.680 sometimes if they have had damage in the winter, they 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:15.920 will shorten that window that visitors can come. Tourists also 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:20.040 cannot stay overnight on the island and there are no amenities. Basically, 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:22.040 you you go for a little while and you get 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:24.279 back on the boat and you leave. Uh. The island 0:05:24.320 --> 0:05:28.279 is also designated a statutory nature reserve, so no animal 0:05:28.360 --> 0:05:31.360 visitors are allowed and no trash can be left behind. 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:35.359 The animals that most commonly benefit from the islands reserve 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:39.440 status are birds. Seabirds often nest there during their respective 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:42.680 breeding seasons. Skelling Michael is considered one of the most 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:45.840 important breeding grounds for birds in Ireland, and for some 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:48.599 species it's one of the most important places in the world. 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:52.320 The storm Petrol and makes Sheerwater have some of their 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:55.159 largest breeding groups on the island, and it's also home 0:05:55.240 --> 0:06:00.000 to puffins which I love and Kitty Wake among others. 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:04.080 Paragram falcons also nest there, although not every year, and 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:07.360 there are a few mammals on the island as well, 0:06:07.400 --> 0:06:12.600 including gray seals, house mice and rabbits. Also of interest 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:15.800 in terms of its natural makeup is the lichen that 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:18.680 grows on Skelling Michael. There are actually one hundred and 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:22.080 twenty eight different species of lichen found on this tiny 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:25.520 rocky island and to like in a Colis fungi, that's 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:28.760 enough to classify it as a nationally important site for 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:31.560 like in growth based on a conservation study that was 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:34.840 conducted in two thousand nine to get to more of 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:39.839 the human made structures. Skelling Michael is also home to 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:42.599 a monastery that was built hundreds of years ago and 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:44.400 we're going to get into the history of that in 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:47.240 more detailed descriptions of the monastery and just a bit 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:50.640 but at first. But first we're going to talk about 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:55.479 how it exists there today. The settlement has two different segments, 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:58.040 and the first is the monastery itself, which is built 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:01.320 on the island's east side, high up on sloping areas 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:04.919 of rock. The monastery has three access points, all of 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:09.640 which involve navigating a lot of steps, a lot of steps, 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:12.200 like they actually say in the visit any of the 0:07:12.280 --> 0:07:15.440 visitors stuff that you may read, like the visitors advisories 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:17.880 like please don't come if you're not ready to take 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:21.800 on like six hundred steps, because it is vigorous work, 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:25.320 and it's not there's not an easy way up. There's 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:27.840 like I said, there are no amenities, there's no elevator, 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:30.760 there are no chair lifts. You have to handle it yourself. 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:34.200 And those steps are really amazing because they're cut from 0:07:34.240 --> 0:07:36.960 the rock of the island, from the landing point where 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:38.840 you would first step foot on the island up to 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:42.160 the highest point where water can possibly reach, and then 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:44.840 above that height the steps continue, but from then on 0:07:44.880 --> 0:07:48.400 they're made of dry stone masonry. The structures within the 0:07:48.440 --> 0:07:55.000 monastery included church, two oratories, seven beehive cells, water cisterns 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:57.840 and a cemetery and locked, which I have also heard 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:02.960 Irish people say locked Locked as a square or rectangular 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:06.280 structure built with layers of stones but no mortar. While 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:08.520 they have been found at a number of Irish Early 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:12.360 Christian monastic sites, their function isn't entirely clear. There have 0:08:12.400 --> 0:08:15.440 been several theories, including that they may have marked graves 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:18.760 of important holy people, or were used to house relics, 0:08:18.920 --> 0:08:22.200 or had some sort of social spiritual function. And there 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:26.280 are also two large garden terraces and retaining walls which 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:29.640 form the foundation of the entire site. The second area 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:32.920 of construction is separate from the monastery itself, on ledges 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:36.080 of the south Peak. It's composed of several structures and 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:41.560 including an oratory, altar, blocked and water cisterns. Steps cut 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:44.080 out of the rock provide access to these structures, which 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:48.320 are described in archaeological stratigraphic report written in twenty eleven 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:52.680 as daringly constructed. I sort of feel that way about 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:55.959 everything on Skellic Michael. It's so beautiful, but I don't 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:58.440 know that I am its target visitor, because I think 0:08:58.480 --> 0:09:00.319 I would spend the whole time screaming in figared that 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:02.840 I would just fall. It's all very steep. That name 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:05.439 is apt uh And we're gonna go a little bit 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:08.120 deeper into talking about those daring structures that Tracy just 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:11.000 mentioned uh and where they fit into the island's history. 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:18.440 But first we're gonna pause for a quick sponsor break. 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:26.320 The first known reference to skelling Michael goes all the 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:30.400 way back to se b c. It's referenced is the 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:34.080 place where the Prince Ire, fifth son of Milicius, died 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:36.240 when his ship was separated from the rest of his 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:39.520 fleet during a storm, crashed upon a rock and sank. 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:43.559 This is, however, a folkloric accounts, so it remains unverified. 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:47.200 There's another unverified story of scaling Michael set in the 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:50.679 fifth century. In this instance, after a conflict between the 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:53.400 Kings of Castle and the Kings of Munster, the King 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:57.040 of West Munster named Duach said to have fled to 0:09:57.120 --> 0:10:00.840 Skellic Michael. And while this event is written as having 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:03.719 happened in the fifth century, that account was recorded in 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:06.480 either the eighth or the ninth century, so it's it's 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:09.839 accuracy is hard to gauge. We know for certain, based 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:12.720 on the structures that we talked about earlier, that monks 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:15.560 moved into the island at some point, but exactly when 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:19.520 that happened also isn't clear. The earliest estimates place at 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:22.080 at the place the start of the monastery somewhere in 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:25.360 the sixth century, although it could have been built as 0:10:25.480 --> 0:10:28.360 late as the eighth century. And then the earliest known 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:31.520 reference to the monastery is in an annal entry from 0:10:31.559 --> 0:10:34.760 the year eight d twenty four which describes a Norse 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:38.439 raid on Skellig Michael. Yeah, there's a lot of disparate 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:43.160 accounts that the place that at different times, but it's 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:45.600 somewhere in there. I think most people tend to favor 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:47.760 the earlier thing, because a lot of the accounts that 0:10:47.760 --> 0:10:49.840 happened later on, and we'll talk about it in a minute, 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:53.120 suggests that it was already functioning. The position of this 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:56.240 monastery is actually quite well chosen. It's six dred feet 0:10:56.280 --> 0:10:59.720 above sea level, and where it sits on the island 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:02.880 in and in relation to its peaks offers some natural shelter, 0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:05.679 and it has plenty of stones to use in building. 0:11:06.120 --> 0:11:08.520 So the monks could access stone from right there on 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:11.959 the island to build these structures, and it enabled relatively 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:16.160 easy water collection. So channels were cut into sloping stone 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:19.680 to direct water right into cisterns that they had placed, 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:22.440 and the two primary cisterns that were used were built 0:11:22.480 --> 0:11:24.880 to hold roughly a hundred and twenty gallons that's about 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:28.040 four dred and fifty liters of water. One of the 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:31.280 unique aspects of the monastery is the cell structures that 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:35.079 are sometimes described as as bee hives. These hives are 0:11:35.080 --> 0:11:40.800 shaped like inverted elliptic paraboloids, so not not bee hives 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:45.480 like the flat ones in boxes that are manufactured, but 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:49.560 the domed ones the bees would actually build on their 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:52.800 own or that you know. Sometimes people keep bees in 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:57.200 baskets that are that shaped like an inverted semi dome 0:11:57.240 --> 0:12:00.760 sort of structure. They have a doorway into the front 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:02.800 of each of them and steps that lead in and 0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:06.000 out of the doors. The beehive cells are all arranged 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:09.120 along the monastery's large oratory, but there are some differences 0:12:09.160 --> 0:12:13.440 among them, and the cells are lettered for identification. Yeah, 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:17.280 and just for clarity, um. The cell letter order does 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:21.439 not in any way pertain to their age order, which 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:24.240 I was trying to explain this to to a friend 0:12:24.280 --> 0:12:26.000 and they got a little thrown by that. So just 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:30.840 know that this the A through um G does not 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:34.320 in any way suggest that A came first and GE 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:39.160 was at the end. There completely separate um naming systems. 0:12:39.200 --> 0:12:42.400 So cell A is the largest one. It actually has 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:44.840 a second interior level, and it's believed to have been 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:48.120 a communal space, and it's quite large. At the base 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:50.920 of the structure. The walls of Cell A are one 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:53.960 point eight meters six so that's almost six ft, and 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:57.240 the interior space is about fifteen by twelve point five 0:12:57.280 --> 0:12:59.800 feet that's about four point six by three point eight meters, 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:03.600 and there's an interior height of sixteen feet. It's about 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:07.080 five ms. Cells B and C are smaller, they're about 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:10.439 two thirds the size of Cell A. Cell D is 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:13.400 actually no longer intact, but it was probably the oldest 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:17.160 cell on the site. Probably it collapsed before Cells C 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:21.719 was completed. Cell E is bigger than B and C, 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:25.760 but smaller than A. It's it's like a word problem 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:29.880 in the S A T S. Cell F is smaller 0:13:29.880 --> 0:13:31.960 in size to B and C, and it has these 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:35.000 interior slabs that are arranged in a manner that suggests 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:38.240 it might have been a sleeping area. These cells were 0:13:38.320 --> 0:13:41.760 built at various points in time, and they aren't homogeneous 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:43.840 in their size as noted or in the way the 0:13:43.920 --> 0:13:47.840 stone work is done. Yeah, it's pretty clear evidence that 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:52.520 they were worked on at various points in time. So, uh, 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:56.000 it's it spans some number of years. There is a 0:13:56.040 --> 0:13:59.520 central church at the monastery that is St. Michael's, and 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:02.360 it's part really collapsed and what would have been its roof, 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:04.199 which would have been made of wood, is long gone. 0:14:04.920 --> 0:14:07.840 The church appears also to have not been built all 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:10.200 at the same time, but in two different stages, the 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:13.760 second one to expand on what was a fairly small 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:16.640 church that was built in the first phase. While a 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:21.040 prominent and impressive aspect of the monastery's design is its 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:25.640 retaining walls, they have experienced multiple structural failures throughout the 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:28.359 life of the site and beginning when it was still occupied. 0:14:28.960 --> 0:14:30.760 The walls have been the focus of a lot of 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:34.880 conservation and preservation work over the years. Yeah, they're amazing 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:38.400 and that they really are, you know, holding up all 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:41.800 of this man made structure. But they definitely are bearing 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:45.120 the weight of that man made structure, and as a consequence, 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:48.960 sometimes they get tired and they break up. Cells don't 0:14:48.960 --> 0:14:51.680 really get walls don't really get tired. I know, nobody 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:56.120 needs to tell me, but they get on it. Um. 0:14:56.160 --> 0:14:58.960 So the daring structures that we referenced a little while 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:02.000 ago make up what's come to be called the Hermitage, 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:05.600 and so in the modern era. Um these man made 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:08.360 structures on Skelling Michael South Peaks, they're a little bit 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:11.160 away from the others, were first referenced in an eighteen 0:15:11.160 --> 0:15:14.560 forty one mapping survey, and then they made another appearance 0:15:14.560 --> 0:15:17.800 on record in the eighteen fifties when Lord Dunraven visited 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:20.040 the island and wrote of having seen the ruins of 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:24.080 a quadrangular building there. The South Peak ruins were noted 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:26.840 again by visiting scholars in the nineteen fifties, but it 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:29.840 actually wasn't until the nineteen eighties that a study of 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:32.440 the site was ordered by the Office of Public Works. 0:15:33.080 --> 0:15:36.240 There are three terraces that make up the Hermitage. There's 0:15:36.280 --> 0:15:39.600 a garden and dwelling terrace that's forty three ft that's 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:43.280 about thirteen meters long. It ranges in width from six 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:46.040 point five to thirteen feet, which is two to four meters. 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:49.440 One end of the terrace, which includes a section of 0:15:49.440 --> 0:15:52.200 the attaining wall, it was about five ft or one 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:55.000 and a half meters high, and that remains intact. The 0:15:55.040 --> 0:15:59.520 other end of it, though, has collapsed. The Oratory Terrorists 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:02.760 sits at a right angle to the garden and dwelling terraces, 0:16:02.760 --> 0:16:05.960 and it's about thirteen feet that's four meters higher up 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:09.320 on the peak on this terrace is a small oratory 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:12.640 with an interior space of seven point five by six 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:15.880 point five feet that's about two point three by two meters, 0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:19.400 and this terrace extends far past the oratory to the east, 0:16:19.440 --> 0:16:22.480 although it is quite a narrow sort of Terrorists that 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:25.520 you're you're on at that point from the Oratory Terrorists. 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:28.880 The outer terraces used to be reachable via a traverse 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:31.600 that was chiseled from the stone by the monks, but 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:34.920 in modern times it's a place that's really best visited 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:37.920 by skilled climbers and no one else. It's treacherous to 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:40.400 navigate the ledges that you have to move across. It's 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:43.800 not clear if that outer terrace was ever completed, and 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:46.800 it's also not clear what its function was. Yeah, I 0:16:46.800 --> 0:16:49.720 watched a brief like newsreel of a team that was 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:54.080 going up when they were doing some preservation investigation, and 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:58.640 it's like, look, we found handhelds. Like they're literally basically 0:16:58.680 --> 0:17:01.800 just scaling up the rock face until they actually found 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:04.560 something that a human could stand on. So it is 0:17:04.600 --> 0:17:06.520 not just something you would go, hey, I'd like to 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:11.280 go up there. It's a again, not a place that 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:15.399 I should maybe visit because it looks terrifying. Um. Sometime 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:19.080 before the early eleventh century, the island monastery was dedicated 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:22.399 to St. Michael. St. Piannon is also closely tied to 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:25.199 the history of the monastery and may have been its founder. 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:27.840 He's often referenced as the founder, but again it's all 0:17:27.880 --> 0:17:31.560 a little unclear. Records of the late twelfth century indicates 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:34.600 that the settlement was occupied and having regular mass at 0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:38.240 that point, but soon after in the thirteenth century, shifting 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:42.520 church structure in Ireland and increased instances of inclement weather 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:46.840 on and around the island lad the monastery to be abandoned. 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:49.520 The monks who had been living there moved to the 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:53.040 mainland village of Balance Skelligs, and after that point, the 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:56.680 monastery at Skelling Michael was considered part of the Balance 0:17:56.720 --> 0:18:00.720 Skellings Monastery. Yeah, but it wasn't really it's not believed 0:18:00.720 --> 0:18:02.760 to have been occupied after that point. It just kind 0:18:02.760 --> 0:18:05.919 of was was notated as part of their their larger 0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:10.200 um kind of organizational structure. But again, like there had 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:13.040 been a shift in climate and they it really was 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:15.760 not easy or safe to occupy that area any longer. 0:18:16.480 --> 0:18:19.480 From the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries, the island appears 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:22.280 on navigational charts that were used by both Italian and 0:18:22.320 --> 0:18:26.640 Iberian seafarers. The monastery was officially closed in the sixteenth 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:30.080 century with Henry the Eighths dissolution of monasteries, and it 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:33.760 passed into private ownership by a family named Butler. The 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:37.400 Butler family retained ownership of the island until eight one. 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:41.080 In November of eighteen twenty, Jay Butler was approached by 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:44.199 the government's Board of Works about a permanent lease on 0:18:44.240 --> 0:18:47.240 the island so that two lighthouses could be built there, 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:50.600 and after some back and forth, legal experts investigating the 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:54.040 situation determined that Butler's legal ownership of the land was 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:57.919 not clearly documented. After an appraisal of the property. The 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:01.359 Butler Estate was paid seven pounds for Skelling Michael, and 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:04.600 the Commissioners of Irish Lights assumed ownership of it. We're 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:06.760 gonna talk about the lighthouses in just a moment, but 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:14.520 first we're gonna pause and have another short sponsor break. 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:22.720 Construction of the two lighthouses at Skelling Michael began in 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:27.520 August of eighty one. Inspector George Holpin designed the buildings 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:33.040 in roadway and oversaw initial construction. The lighthouse road runs 0:19:33.080 --> 0:19:38.160 from the upper lighthouse site, which is on the western 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:41.160 side of the islands, south to the coast, and then 0:19:41.200 --> 0:19:44.280 around the islands south and east edges to the east landing. 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:47.200 There is no road along the northern shore of the island. 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:50.520 There aren't many records of the actual construction process, but 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:53.920 both lighthouses were completed and in use by the end 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:57.760 of The taller of the two lights was nearly four 0:19:57.840 --> 0:20:00.880 hundred feet that's a hu of the high water mark, 0:20:01.200 --> 0:20:04.520 with a visibility range of twenty five miles or forty kilometers. 0:20:05.080 --> 0:20:07.639 The lower light was a hundred seventy five ft or 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:10.280 fifty three point three meters above the high water mark. 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:14.320 With a visibility range of eighteen miles or twenty nine kilometers. 0:20:14.359 --> 0:20:17.800 Both were non moving lights. Uh in a sad note 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:21.280 in eighteen sixty nine, so more than forty years into 0:20:21.320 --> 0:20:24.879 the lighthouses life, a small modern grave was added to 0:20:24.920 --> 0:20:28.520 the chapel at Skelling Michael. At that point lighthouse keeper W. 0:20:28.720 --> 0:20:32.120 Callahan buried two of his small children there after both 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:35.480 had died of an illness. He then requested and was 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:38.159 granted a transfer elsewhere as he was concerned for the 0:20:38.200 --> 0:20:41.520 health of his remaining child. So there is one instance 0:20:41.560 --> 0:20:43.520 of a modern I'm using the air quotes since it 0:20:43.560 --> 0:20:45.680 was in the eighteen hundreds, but a modern grave there 0:20:45.680 --> 0:20:48.280 at the site. The upper light was in service for 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:51.720 forty four years until it was planted by another lighthouse 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:55.119 north of the Skellic Islands in eighteen seventy. The lower 0:20:55.240 --> 0:20:58.399 lighthouse has remained in use. That's still in use today, 0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:00.680 although there's been an update to it that we'll talk 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:02.760 about in a moment. Yeah, there's actually been a couple 0:21:02.800 --> 0:21:06.200 of updates. But the Office of Public Works took possession 0:21:06.240 --> 0:21:09.600 of the monastery as a state guardianship in eighteen eighty 0:21:09.680 --> 0:21:13.040 with the intent to repair the crumbling structures and establish 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:16.440 an ongoing plan for conservation of the site. In nineteen 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:19.720 o nine, the lower lighthouse was renovated and updated with 0:21:19.760 --> 0:21:22.960 a rotating, more powerful light. The lower light in the 0:21:23.000 --> 0:21:26.480 original rubble masonry tower remained in use for a hundred 0:21:26.560 --> 0:21:30.600 forty six years. It was extinguished in nineteen sixty six 0:21:30.640 --> 0:21:34.560 and a temporary lantern was erected, while an entirely new 0:21:34.600 --> 0:21:38.080 tower was built. The following year, the new lighthouse was online, 0:21:38.160 --> 0:21:41.760 boasting another upgrade to one point eight million candles light. 0:21:42.359 --> 0:21:46.199 In nineteen sixty nine, Skelling Michael's helipad was constructed on 0:21:46.280 --> 0:21:50.400 the eastern coast of the island. That helipad is made 0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:54.320 of reinforced concrete and three very thick columns supported off 0:21:54.359 --> 0:21:57.879 the cliff face. It is terrifying as everything else to 0:21:57.960 --> 0:22:01.199 me to look at on the the cliff side the 0:22:01.240 --> 0:22:04.119 open side of the helipad, it is a one twenty 0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:07.200 one ft or thirty seven meter dropped directly into the ocean. 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:10.760 In nineteen seventy eight, Skellig Michael became the focus of 0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:14.400 a long term conservation project. At that point, a retaining 0:22:14.440 --> 0:22:16.880 wall near the church that's part of the monastery St. 0:22:16.880 --> 0:22:20.680 Michael's had experienced a structural failure and it was prioritized 0:22:20.720 --> 0:22:24.840 as the project's first order of business. UH. And additionally, 0:22:25.040 --> 0:22:27.159 steps that were leading up to the main entrance of 0:22:27.200 --> 0:22:31.800 the monastery also needed restoration. Natural water erosion had claimed 0:22:31.840 --> 0:22:34.800 some of the lower sections that reach into the waterline, 0:22:35.000 --> 0:22:38.320 and heavy use of these stairways during periods of lighthouse 0:22:38.359 --> 0:22:42.480 construction had also really damaged some of the masonry. Only 0:22:42.600 --> 0:22:45.320 one of the three stairways leading to the main monastery 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:49.520 is currently accessible to visitors. In nine eight, excavation work 0:22:49.560 --> 0:22:52.280 began at the site of that work has continued for decades. 0:22:52.800 --> 0:22:57.040