Speaker 1: Happy Saturday, everybody. Uh St Patrick's Day is just around
Speaker 1: the corner. We always get requests for Irish history, so
Speaker 1: we've decided to pull a little bit out of the archive.
Speaker 1: This is our episode on Skelling Michael. And although we
Speaker 1: chose this episode because of Skelling Michael's use as a
Speaker 1: Star Wars filming location, it is also the site of
Speaker 1: one of Ireland's early Christian monastic sites. This episode originally
Speaker 1: came out December six, so enjoy Welcome to Stuff You
Speaker 1: missed in History Class, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frying and I'm
Speaker 1: Tracy Wilson. If you're a Star Wars fan, and frankly
Speaker 1: even if you're not, you have probably seen scenes of
Speaker 1: Luke Skywalker in The Force Awakens and in promotional materials
Speaker 1: for The Last Jedi where he and visually Ray are
Speaker 1: standing on an island with ancient looking structures on it.
Speaker 1: That is a real island, that's not a set, and
Speaker 1: those structures are also not sets that were built for
Speaker 1: the film. They are part of a real thing that
Speaker 1: is ancient Skelling Michael. The island where those scenes were
Speaker 1: shot is a historic site with a fascinating history all
Speaker 1: its own. It's also got kind of a nice juxtaposition
Speaker 1: because a big chunk of its history is is much older,
Speaker 1: and then there's a newer history of some of the
Speaker 1: more modern things that have been built on the island.
Speaker 1: Um So, since I have Star Wars rabies and I
Speaker 1: can barely manage to contain myself while I wait for
Speaker 1: the Last Jedita premiere, uh, and because this really is
Speaker 1: a legitimately very very interesting uh historical site, I thought
Speaker 1: it might be fund to delve into this location in
Speaker 1: its rich history for the podcast. Yeah, if you were
Speaker 1: concerned based on the number of times that we said
Speaker 1: the Last Jedi, we're not going to be talking about
Speaker 1: anything in the movie at all on the island at all.
Speaker 1: That's pretty much all the Star Worst talk except a
Speaker 1: story about filming at the end, and even that has
Speaker 1: nothing to do. So we're not going to spoil anyone
Speaker 1: or anything related or no Star Wars. You would have
Speaker 1: had to have not gone to see The Force Awakens
Speaker 1: yet for that to have been a spoiler, which I
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe you didn't, but at this point, if
Speaker 1: you haven't gone to see The Force Awakens. Then I
Speaker 1: think you would have to have been in media blackout
Speaker 1: because it's appeared on so many like magazine covers, television promos. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, interviews are often inter cut if you see
Speaker 1: them on television with shots of this island. So it's
Speaker 1: I don't think we're giving anything away. I feel confident
Speaker 1: that we have skirted any territory. Well, I think if
Speaker 1: you have not yet seen Force Awakens, you probably don't
Speaker 1: care about Star Wars spoilers, right, none of which are
Speaker 1: in here anyway. We are literally just talking about the
Speaker 1: history of this. I want to be very clear, Okay.
Speaker 1: Skelling Michael is one of two islands that make up
Speaker 1: the Skellic Islands. The word skelling derives from the Irish
Speaker 1: word for steep rock. And then the other island is
Speaker 1: the smaller one of the two. It's called Little Island
Speaker 1: and it's closed to visitors. Sometimes you'll also see Skelling
Speaker 1: Michael called the Great Skelling Yep. Also you'll see it
Speaker 1: spelled in various different ways. We're going with kind of
Speaker 1: the most basic, uh globally facing spelling that gets used
Speaker 1: a lot. It's probably the americanized spelling that's just the
Speaker 1: scoop on that. If you see it spelled a different way,
Speaker 1: that's why. And Skelling Michael is uh seven miles that's
Speaker 1: eleven point six kilometers west of the edge of Ireland's
Speaker 1: Eva Peninsula in County Kerry, and the highest elevation of
Speaker 1: the island is seven hundred and fifteen feet that's about
Speaker 1: two hundred and eighteen meters And this island is tiny.
Speaker 1: It is less than a square mile in area, so
Speaker 1: if you do hectares, that's nine hectares. The Minister for
Speaker 1: Art hair Ritage and the Geltacht owned Skelling Michael on
Speaker 1: behalf of the Irish people. And there's also a lighthouse
Speaker 1: and support buildings for the lighthouse on the southern end
Speaker 1: of the island, as well as a helipad, and this
Speaker 1: portion of the island falls outside of the ownership arrangement
Speaker 1: mentioned above. We'll get a little bit more into that
Speaker 1: in a bit. The geological makeup of Skelling Michael is
Speaker 1: what's called old red sandstone, sedimentary layers of rock deposited
Speaker 1: somewhere between three hundred sixty and three hundred seventy four
Speaker 1: million years ago during the Devonian period. When Ireland was
Speaker 1: part of a much larger continent. It's the westernmost European
Speaker 1: instance of Devonian sandstone, which can be found throughout Britain
Speaker 1: and Ireland, Scandinavia and Greenland. It's also in portions of Canada.
Speaker 1: Skelling Michael also has to twin peaks with a valley
Speaker 1: in the middle, which has come to be known as
Speaker 1: Christ's Saddle. Uh. And that helipad that we mentioned briefly
Speaker 1: is for emergencies only. That's not a standard way to
Speaker 1: get on and off the island or special cases. Um.
Speaker 1: So from the middle of May to September, visitors may
Speaker 1: travel to Skelling Michael, but only by boat, and it
Speaker 1: is for davisits exclusively. And I should also mention that
Speaker 1: sometimes if they have had damage in the winter, they
Speaker 1: will shorten that window that visitors can come. Tourists also
Speaker 1: cannot stay overnight on the island and there are no amenities. Basically,
Speaker 1: you you go for a little while and you get
Speaker 1: back on the boat and you leave. Uh. The island
Speaker 1: is also designated a statutory nature reserve, so no animal
Speaker 1: visitors are allowed and no trash can be left behind.
Speaker 1: The animals that most commonly benefit from the islands reserve
Speaker 1: status are birds. Seabirds often nest there during their respective
Speaker 1: breeding seasons. Skelling Michael is considered one of the most
Speaker 1: important breeding grounds for birds in Ireland, and for some
Speaker 1: species it's one of the most important places in the world.
Speaker 1: The storm Petrol and makes Sheerwater have some of their
Speaker 1: largest breeding groups on the island, and it's also home
Speaker 1: to puffins which I love and Kitty Wake among others.
Speaker 1: Paragram falcons also nest there, although not every year, and
Speaker 1: there are a few mammals on the island as well,
Speaker 1: including gray seals, house mice and rabbits. Also of interest
Speaker 1: in terms of its natural makeup is the lichen that
Speaker 1: grows on Skelling Michael. There are actually one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty eight different species of lichen found on this tiny
Speaker 1: rocky island and to like in a Colis fungi, that's
Speaker 1: enough to classify it as a nationally important site for
Speaker 1: like in growth based on a conservation study that was
Speaker 1: conducted in two thousand nine to get to more of
Speaker 1: the human made structures. Skelling Michael is also home to
Speaker 1: a monastery that was built hundreds of years ago and
Speaker 1: we're going to get into the history of that in
Speaker 1: more detailed descriptions of the monastery and just a bit
Speaker 1: but at first. But first we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: how it exists there today. The settlement has two different segments,
Speaker 1: and the first is the monastery itself, which is built
Speaker 1: on the island's east side, high up on sloping areas
Speaker 1: of rock. The monastery has three access points, all of
Speaker 1: which involve navigating a lot of steps, a lot of steps,
Speaker 1: like they actually say in the visit any of the
Speaker 1: visitors stuff that you may read, like the visitors advisories
Speaker 1: like please don't come if you're not ready to take
Speaker 1: on like six hundred steps, because it is vigorous work,
Speaker 1: and it's not there's not an easy way up. There's
Speaker 1: like I said, there are no amenities, there's no elevator,
Speaker 1: there are no chair lifts. You have to handle it yourself.
Speaker 1: And those steps are really amazing because they're cut from
Speaker 1: the rock of the island, from the landing point where
Speaker 1: you would first step foot on the island up to
Speaker 1: the highest point where water can possibly reach, and then
Speaker 1: above that height the steps continue, but from then on
Speaker 1: they're made of dry stone masonry. The structures within the
Speaker 1: monastery included church, two oratories, seven beehive cells, water cisterns
Speaker 1: and a cemetery and locked, which I have also heard
Speaker 1: Irish people say locked Locked as a square or rectangular
Speaker 1: structure built with layers of stones but no mortar. While
Speaker 1: they have been found at a number of Irish Early
Speaker 1: Christian monastic sites, their function isn't entirely clear. There have
Speaker 1: been several theories, including that they may have marked graves
Speaker 1: of important holy people, or were used to house relics,
Speaker 1: or had some sort of social spiritual function. And there
Speaker 1: are also two large garden terraces and retaining walls which
Speaker 1: form the foundation of the entire site. The second area
Speaker 1: of construction is separate from the monastery itself, on ledges
Speaker 1: of the south Peak. It's composed of several structures and
Speaker 1: including an oratory, altar, blocked and water cisterns. Steps cut
Speaker 1: out of the rock provide access to these structures, which
Speaker 1: are described in archaeological stratigraphic report written in twenty eleven
Speaker 1: as daringly constructed. I sort of feel that way about
Speaker 1: everything on Skellic Michael. It's so beautiful, but I don't
Speaker 1: know that I am its target visitor, because I think
Speaker 1: I would spend the whole time screaming in figared that
Speaker 1: I would just fall. It's all very steep. That name
Speaker 1: is apt uh And we're gonna go a little bit
Speaker 1: deeper into talking about those daring structures that Tracy just
Speaker 1: mentioned uh and where they fit into the island's history.
Speaker 1: But first we're gonna pause for a quick sponsor break.
Speaker 1: The first known reference to skelling Michael goes all the
Speaker 1: way back to se b c. It's referenced is the
Speaker 1: place where the Prince Ire, fifth son of Milicius, died
Speaker 1: when his ship was separated from the rest of his
Speaker 1: fleet during a storm, crashed upon a rock and sank.
Speaker 1: This is, however, a folkloric accounts, so it remains unverified.
Speaker 1: There's another unverified story of scaling Michael set in the
Speaker 1: fifth century. In this instance, after a conflict between the
Speaker 1: Kings of Castle and the Kings of Munster, the King
Speaker 1: of West Munster named Duach said to have fled to
Speaker 1: Skellic Michael. And while this event is written as having
Speaker 1: happened in the fifth century, that account was recorded in
Speaker 1: either the eighth or the ninth century, so it's it's
Speaker 1: accuracy is hard to gauge. We know for certain, based
Speaker 1: on the structures that we talked about earlier, that monks
Speaker 1: moved into the island at some point, but exactly when
Speaker 1: that happened also isn't clear. The earliest estimates place at
Speaker 1: at the place the start of the monastery somewhere in
Speaker 1: the sixth century, although it could have been built as
Speaker 1: late as the eighth century. And then the earliest known
Speaker 1: reference to the monastery is in an annal entry from
Speaker 1: the year eight d twenty four which describes a Norse
Speaker 1: raid on Skellig Michael. Yeah, there's a lot of disparate
Speaker 1: accounts that the place that at different times, but it's
Speaker 1: somewhere in there. I think most people tend to favor
Speaker 1: the earlier thing, because a lot of the accounts that
Speaker 1: happened later on, and we'll talk about it in a minute,
Speaker 1: suggests that it was already functioning. The position of this
Speaker 1: monastery is actually quite well chosen. It's six dred feet
Speaker 1: above sea level, and where it sits on the island
Speaker 1: in and in relation to its peaks offers some natural shelter,
Speaker 1: and it has plenty of stones to use in building.
Speaker 1: So the monks could access stone from right there on
Speaker 1: the island to build these structures, and it enabled relatively
Speaker 1: easy water collection. So channels were cut into sloping stone
Speaker 1: to direct water right into cisterns that they had placed,
Speaker 1: and the two primary cisterns that were used were built
Speaker 1: to hold roughly a hundred and twenty gallons that's about
Speaker 1: four dred and fifty liters of water. One of the
Speaker 1: unique aspects of the monastery is the cell structures that
Speaker 1: are sometimes described as as bee hives. These hives are
Speaker 1: shaped like inverted elliptic paraboloids, so not not bee hives
Speaker 1: like the flat ones in boxes that are manufactured, but
Speaker 1: the domed ones the bees would actually build on their
Speaker 1: own or that you know. Sometimes people keep bees in
Speaker 1: baskets that are that shaped like an inverted semi dome
Speaker 1: sort of structure. They have a doorway into the front
Speaker 1: of each of them and steps that lead in and
Speaker 1: out of the doors. The beehive cells are all arranged
Speaker 1: along the monastery's large oratory, but there are some differences
Speaker 1: among them, and the cells are lettered for identification. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and just for clarity, um. The cell letter order does
Speaker 1: not in any way pertain to their age order, which
Speaker 1: I was trying to explain this to to a friend
Speaker 1: and they got a little thrown by that. So just
Speaker 1: know that this the A through um G does not
Speaker 1: in any way suggest that A came first and GE
Speaker 1: was at the end. There completely separate um naming systems.
Speaker 1: So cell A is the largest one. It actually has
Speaker 1: a second interior level, and it's believed to have been
Speaker 1: a communal space, and it's quite large. At the base
Speaker 1: of the structure. The walls of Cell A are one
Speaker 1: point eight meters six so that's almost six ft, and
Speaker 1: the interior space is about fifteen by twelve point five
Speaker 1: feet that's about four point six by three point eight meters,
Speaker 1: and there's an interior height of sixteen feet. It's about
Speaker 1: five ms. Cells B and C are smaller, they're about
Speaker 1: two thirds the size of Cell A. Cell D is
Speaker 1: actually no longer intact, but it was probably the oldest
Speaker 1: cell on the site. Probably it collapsed before Cells C
Speaker 1: was completed. Cell E is bigger than B and C,
Speaker 1: but smaller than A. It's it's like a word problem
Speaker 1: in the S A T S. Cell F is smaller
Speaker 1: in size to B and C, and it has these
Speaker 1: interior slabs that are arranged in a manner that suggests
Speaker 1: it might have been a sleeping area. These cells were
Speaker 1: built at various points in time, and they aren't homogeneous
Speaker 1: in their size as noted or in the way the
Speaker 1: stone work is done. Yeah, it's pretty clear evidence that
Speaker 1: they were worked on at various points in time. So, uh,
Speaker 1: it's it spans some number of years. There is a
Speaker 1: central church at the monastery that is St. Michael's, and
Speaker 1: it's part really collapsed and what would have been its roof,
Speaker 1: which would have been made of wood, is long gone.
Speaker 1: The church appears also to have not been built all
Speaker 1: at the same time, but in two different stages, the
Speaker 1: second one to expand on what was a fairly small
Speaker 1: church that was built in the first phase. While a
Speaker 1: prominent and impressive aspect of the monastery's design is its
Speaker 1: retaining walls, they have experienced multiple structural failures throughout the
Speaker 1: life of the site and beginning when it was still occupied.
Speaker 1: The walls have been the focus of a lot of
Speaker 1: conservation and preservation work over the years. Yeah, they're amazing
Speaker 1: and that they really are, you know, holding up all
Speaker 1: of this man made structure. But they definitely are bearing
Speaker 1: the weight of that man made structure, and as a consequence,
Speaker 1: sometimes they get tired and they break up. Cells don't
Speaker 1: really get walls don't really get tired. I know, nobody
Speaker 1: needs to tell me, but they get on it. Um.
Speaker 1: So the daring structures that we referenced a little while
Speaker 1: ago make up what's come to be called the Hermitage,
Speaker 1: and so in the modern era. Um these man made
Speaker 1: structures on Skelling Michael South Peaks, they're a little bit
Speaker 1: away from the others, were first referenced in an eighteen
Speaker 1: forty one mapping survey, and then they made another appearance
Speaker 1: on record in the eighteen fifties when Lord Dunraven visited
Speaker 1: the island and wrote of having seen the ruins of
Speaker 1: a quadrangular building there. The South Peak ruins were noted
Speaker 1: again by visiting scholars in the nineteen fifties, but it
Speaker 1: actually wasn't until the nineteen eighties that a study of
Speaker 1: the site was ordered by the Office of Public Works.
Speaker 1: There are three terraces that make up the Hermitage. There's
Speaker 1: a garden and dwelling terrace that's forty three ft that's
Speaker 1: about thirteen meters long. It ranges in width from six
Speaker 1: point five to thirteen feet, which is two to four meters.
Speaker 1: One end of the terrace, which includes a section of
Speaker 1: the attaining wall, it was about five ft or one
Speaker 1: and a half meters high, and that remains intact. The
Speaker 1: other end of it, though, has collapsed. The Oratory Terrorists
Speaker 1: sits at a right angle to the garden and dwelling terraces,
Speaker 1: and it's about thirteen feet that's four meters higher up
Speaker 1: on the peak on this terrace is a small oratory
Speaker 1: with an interior space of seven point five by six
Speaker 1: point five feet that's about two point three by two meters,
Speaker 1: and this terrace extends far past the oratory to the east,
Speaker 1: although it is quite a narrow sort of Terrorists that
Speaker 1: you're you're on at that point from the Oratory Terrorists.
Speaker 1: The outer terraces used to be reachable via a traverse
Speaker 1: that was chiseled from the stone by the monks, but
Speaker 1: in modern times it's a place that's really best visited
Speaker 1: by skilled climbers and no one else. It's treacherous to
Speaker 1: navigate the ledges that you have to move across. It's
Speaker 1: not clear if that outer terrace was ever completed, and
Speaker 1: it's also not clear what its function was. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: watched a brief like newsreel of a team that was
Speaker 1: going up when they were doing some preservation investigation, and
Speaker 1: it's like, look, we found handhelds. Like they're literally basically
Speaker 1: just scaling up the rock face until they actually found
Speaker 1: something that a human could stand on. So it is
Speaker 1: not just something you would go, hey, I'd like to
Speaker 1: go up there. It's a again, not a place that
Speaker 1: I should maybe visit because it looks terrifying. Um. Sometime
Speaker 1: before the early eleventh century, the island monastery was dedicated
Speaker 1: to St. Michael. St. Piannon is also closely tied to
Speaker 1: the history of the monastery and may have been its founder.
Speaker 1: He's often referenced as the founder, but again it's all
Speaker 1: a little unclear. Records of the late twelfth century indicates
Speaker 1: that the settlement was occupied and having regular mass at
Speaker 1: that point, but soon after in the thirteenth century, shifting
Speaker 1: church structure in Ireland and increased instances of inclement weather
Speaker 1: on and around the island lad the monastery to be abandoned.
Speaker 1: The monks who had been living there moved to the
Speaker 1: mainland village of Balance Skelligs, and after that point, the
Speaker 1: monastery at Skelling Michael was considered part of the Balance
Speaker 1: Skellings Monastery. Yeah, but it wasn't really it's not believed
Speaker 1: to have been occupied after that point. It just kind
Speaker 1: of was was notated as part of their their larger
Speaker 1: um kind of organizational structure. But again, like there had
Speaker 1: been a shift in climate and they it really was
Speaker 1: not easy or safe to occupy that area any longer.
Speaker 1: From the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries, the island appears
Speaker 1: on navigational charts that were used by both Italian and
Speaker 1: Iberian seafarers. The monastery was officially closed in the sixteenth
Speaker 1: century with Henry the Eighths dissolution of monasteries, and it
Speaker 1: passed into private ownership by a family named Butler. The
Speaker 1: Butler family retained ownership of the island until eight one.
Speaker 1: In November of eighteen twenty, Jay Butler was approached by
Speaker 1: the government's Board of Works about a permanent lease on
Speaker 1: the island so that two lighthouses could be built there,
Speaker 1: and after some back and forth, legal experts investigating the
Speaker 1: situation determined that Butler's legal ownership of the land was
Speaker 1: not clearly documented. After an appraisal of the property. The
Speaker 1: Butler Estate was paid seven pounds for Skelling Michael, and
Speaker 1: the Commissioners of Irish Lights assumed ownership of it. We're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about the lighthouses in just a moment, but
Speaker 1: first we're gonna pause and have another short sponsor break.
Speaker 1: Construction of the two lighthouses at Skelling Michael began in
Speaker 1: August of eighty one. Inspector George Holpin designed the buildings
Speaker 1: in roadway and oversaw initial construction. The lighthouse road runs
Speaker 1: from the upper lighthouse site, which is on the western
Speaker 1: side of the islands, south to the coast, and then
Speaker 1: around the islands south and east edges to the east landing.
Speaker 1: There is no road along the northern shore of the island.
Speaker 1: There aren't many records of the actual construction process, but
Speaker 1: both lighthouses were completed and in use by the end
Speaker 1: of The taller of the two lights was nearly four
Speaker 1: hundred feet that's a hu of the high water mark,
Speaker 1: with a visibility range of twenty five miles or forty kilometers.
Speaker 1: The lower light was a hundred seventy five ft or
Speaker 1: fifty three point three meters above the high water mark.
Speaker 1: With a visibility range of eighteen miles or twenty nine kilometers.
Speaker 1: Both were non moving lights. Uh in a sad note
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty nine, so more than forty years into
Speaker 1: the lighthouses life, a small modern grave was added to
Speaker 1: the chapel at Skelling Michael. At that point lighthouse keeper W.
Speaker 1: Callahan buried two of his small children there after both
Speaker 1: had died of an illness. He then requested and was
Speaker 1: granted a transfer elsewhere as he was concerned for the
Speaker 1: health of his remaining child. So there is one instance
Speaker 1: of a modern I'm using the air quotes since it
Speaker 1: was in the eighteen hundreds, but a modern grave there
Speaker 1: at the site. The upper light was in service for
Speaker 1: forty four years until it was planted by another lighthouse
Speaker 1: north of the Skellic Islands in eighteen seventy. The lower
Speaker 1: lighthouse has remained in use. That's still in use today,
Speaker 1: although there's been an update to it that we'll talk
Speaker 1: about in a moment. Yeah, there's actually been a couple
Speaker 1: of updates. But the Office of Public Works took possession
Speaker 1: of the monastery as a state guardianship in eighteen eighty
Speaker 1: with the intent to repair the crumbling structures and establish
Speaker 1: an ongoing plan for conservation of the site. In nineteen
Speaker 1: o nine, the lower lighthouse was renovated and updated with
Speaker 1: a rotating, more powerful light. The lower light in the
Speaker 1: original rubble masonry tower remained in use for a hundred
Speaker 1: forty six years. It was extinguished in nineteen sixty six
Speaker 1: and a temporary lantern was erected, while an entirely new
Speaker 1: tower was built. The following year, the new lighthouse was online,
Speaker 1: boasting another upgrade to one point eight million candles light.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty nine, Skelling Michael's helipad was constructed on
Speaker 1: the eastern coast of the island. That helipad is made
Speaker 1: of reinforced concrete and three very thick columns supported off
Speaker 1: the cliff face. It is terrifying as everything else to
Speaker 1: me to look at on the the cliff side the
Speaker 1: open side of the helipad, it is a one twenty
Speaker 1: one ft or thirty seven meter dropped directly into the ocean.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy eight, Skellig Michael became the focus of
Speaker 1: a long term conservation project. At that point, a retaining
Speaker 1: wall near the church that's part of the monastery St.
Speaker 1: Michael's had experienced a structural failure and it was prioritized
Speaker 1: as the project's first order of business. UH. And additionally,
Speaker 1: steps that were leading up to the main entrance of
Speaker 1: the monastery also needed restoration. Natural water erosion had claimed
Speaker 1: some of the lower sections that reach into the waterline,
Speaker 1: and heavy use of these stairways during periods of lighthouse
Speaker 1: construction had also really damaged some of the masonry. Only
Speaker 1: one of the three stairways leading to the main monastery
Speaker 1: is currently accessible to visitors. In nine eight, excavation work
Speaker 1: began at the site of that work has continued for decades.
Speaker 1: The National Monument Service of Ireland was responsible for these efforts.
Speaker 1: That organization has been part of various government departments over
Speaker 1: the years, but it's work at Skelling Michael has continued
Speaker 1: seasonally throughout all those re organizations. Yeah, there's a narrow
Speaker 1: window winter you can't really go there and do any
Speaker 1: sort of excavation UH to examine the ruins because it's
Speaker 1: just too cold. UH. In nine eighty one, a project
Speaker 1: was completed that had begun in nineteen eight to finally
Speaker 1: automate the lighthouse. In nineteen eighty nine, the Commissioners of
Speaker 1: Irish Lights sold the island Skelling Michael to the State,
Speaker 1: which was already the guardian of the monastery, with the
Speaker 1: exception of the remaining active lighthouse and its related structures.
Speaker 1: Yeah the Commissioners of Irish Lights still retained that lighthouse
Speaker 1: area and then in n Skelling Michael became a UNESCO
Speaker 1: World Heritage Site. On October twenty two, two thousand one,
Speaker 1: that lighthouse was converted to solar power. A lamp change
Speaker 1: which was done at the same time, reduced the lights
Speaker 1: reached to nineteen miles. Diesel generators are still on hand
Speaker 1: for backup power. In the focus of archaeological effort shifted
Speaker 1: to the lighthouse road and in seven tons of stone
Speaker 1: were brought to the island via military airlift to be
Speaker 1: used in the roads restoration. There have been two rescue
Speaker 1: operations launched from Skelling Michael to date. On October sixteen,
Speaker 1: three of its lighthousekeepers helped rescue two boatloads of survivors
Speaker 1: from the S S. Marina, which was a British cargo
Speaker 1: ship that had been torpedoed by a German U boat.
Speaker 1: While eighteen men died in the attack, more than a
Speaker 1: hundred were saved. The three keepers were awarded one pound
Speaker 1: from the Board of Trade and an additional guinea from
Speaker 1: the S S. Marina's owner, the Donaldson Line YEP. They
Speaker 1: each got that award. On February ninety four, an aircraft
Speaker 1: exploded in mid air after colliding with the highest peak
Speaker 1: of the island and falling in pieces into the water,
Speaker 1: and British aircraft and the lighthouse keepers of Scaling Michael
Speaker 1: executed a search, but neither the wreckage nor any survive
Speaker 1: were ever found. Unfortunately, the use of Scaling Michael as
Speaker 1: a filming location has been the source of some friction.
Speaker 1: Archaeology specialist voiced concerns about the safety of the monastery,
Speaker 1: and Bird Watched Ireland, which is an independent conservation group,
Speaker 1: criticized Ireland's Minister of Arts for approving the use of
Speaker 1: the island as a location without involving a third party
Speaker 1: specializing in conservation and bird habitat assessment and unfortunately, those
Speaker 1: concerns were brought into sharp focus in when a helicopter
Speaker 1: on a site scouting flight caused a number of kittywake
Speaker 1: nests to be disturbed. The down draft from the chopper's
Speaker 1: propeller caused some of the chicks to be swept into
Speaker 1: the sea and they were killed by seagulls. After this incident,
Speaker 1: everyone involved reassessed the situation. Additional flights were canceled, the
Speaker 1: filming schedule was was reviewed to avoid the primary breading season,
Speaker 1: although other birds still nesting on the island caused continued
Speaker 1: concern on the part of bird Watch Ireland. Bird Watched
Speaker 1: Ireland's point of view is that there was a breach
Speaker 1: and established a protocol by doing it this way. The
Speaker 1: Office of the Minister of Arts remained insistent though that
Speaker 1: the European Union Habitats Directive was upheld, so there's some
Speaker 1: disagreement on that point. Yeah, I did notice there are
Speaker 1: a few instances regarding scaling Michael, outside of this where
Speaker 1: there is disagreement about how restoration has been handled or whether, um,
Speaker 1: you know, everything has been executed in the proper way
Speaker 1: into the letter of the law. And it usually everything
Speaker 1: I found just turns out to be a very similar
Speaker 1: back and forth of you did it wrong, no, we didn't,
Speaker 1: we did everything like this, we don't agree with you,
Speaker 1: we think you're lying, like that just goes on and
Speaker 1: on and on. So it's a little hard to parse
Speaker 1: out um scaling Michael i'm a notes to me the
Speaker 1: site of much disagreement. But to end all of this
Speaker 1: on a more poetic note, it seems fitting to mention
Speaker 1: the island as it was seen through the eyes of
Speaker 1: one of Ireland's most famous creative minds. In the Hi
Speaker 1: writer George Bernard Shaw visited skelling Michael and it made
Speaker 1: a very strong impression. He later wrote the following quote,
Speaker 1: But for the magic that takes you out far out
Speaker 1: of this time, in this world, there is skelling Michael,
Speaker 1: ten miles off Carrey Coast, shooting straight up seven hundred
Speaker 1: feet sheer out of the Atlantic. Whoever has not stood
Speaker 1: in the graveyard and their beehive oratory does not know
Speaker 1: Ireland through and through. That's lovely, It is very lovely.
Speaker 1: Thanks George Bernard Shaw, Thanks so much for joining us
Speaker 1: on this Saturday. Since this episode is out of the archive,
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