MYC604 Skellig Michael

Skellig Michael, also called Great Skellig, Sceilg Mhichí, is a twin-pinnacled crag 11.6 kilometres west of the Iveragh Peninsula in County Kerry, Ireland. The island is named after the archangel Michael; while "Skellig" is derived from the Irish language word sceilig, meaning a splinter of stone.Skellig Michael is a remote, jagged island 12 km off the coast of County Kerry, Ireland. Famous for its dramatic natural beauty, the island is globally renowned for its remarkably preserved 6th-century monastic settlement, who built a remote mountaintop monastery to seek extreme isolation for prayer and disconnect from worldly distractions and draw closer to God. Their cells consisted as dry-stone, corbelled "beehive" huts (clocháns) with domed -shaped, corbelled roofs, built without mortar that still stand intact today. Similar corbelled stone building traditions date back thousands of years in Celtic regions, with basic prototypes appearing in Ireland and Scotland as early as 2000 BCE. The monks carved over 600 steep stone steps directly into the sheer rock cliffs as part of an ancient pathway to the summit.The island carries the name of the Archangel Michael, and folklore says Michael arrived here before helping St. Patrick banish snakes from Ireland.