The Last Jedi’s Monastic Retreat

The Skellig Islands. More stunning and other-worldly than any of the special effects of the past two Star Wars movies is the real-life towering rock outcroppings glimpsed in the closing moments of The Force Awakens (2015) and now playing a starring role in the blockbuster, The Last Jedi (2017). Although the Great Skellig, also known as Skellig Michael and Sceilig Mhichíl, and the Lesser (or Little) Skellig appear to be in a galaxy far, far away, they are in fact about eight miles off the dramatic southwest Atlantic coast of Ireland. Long before Luke Skywalker arrived on the scene, the islands have been a sacred place of retreat, pilgrimage and sanctuary.

 

 

Up a great trek of the remaining 618 steps cut into the sea-bitten cliffs, Great Skellig has near its 715-foot summit an ancient monastery that appears to be almost organic with the ragged landscape. Several structures have miraculously survived to some extent from Viking raids, relentless gales, and time. Inspired by the Coptic Church of Egypt and Libya, and St. Anthony in the desert, Gaelic Christian monks sought extreme solitude here from sometime in the 6^th to 8^th centuries until the late 12th or early 13^th century.

There are the remains of an abbey, with a later medieval church built upon it, two oratory chapels, cemetery, and stone crosses, and, on the southern of the two peaks, the remnants of a hermitage with three separate terraces. It is the six complete drystone beehive cells or dwelling houses where an estimated twelve monks and an abbot (and Luke) retreated that are particularly remarkable. The church, unlike the beehives, erected with mortar, was dedicated from at least the 11^th century to Saint Michael. The tidal island citadels of St. Michael’s Mount in Cornwall, England and Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy, France, are more easily accessible counterparts.

Following the dissolution of the monasteries in 1578, the islands passed to private ownership of the Butler family. The Irish Government took possession in the 1820s to erect two lighthouses. One was automated in the 1980s, maintaining a still much-needed beacon on the Atlantic side, where the seas are unpredictable and often turbulent. Since 1880, the Irish Office of Public Works took over maintenance of the archaeological site.

 

 

Little Skellig, where boats are not allowed to land, is a seabird sanctuary of northern gannets of six-foot wingspan, one of the largest colonies in the world. On the islands are also protected habitats of Manx shearwaters, northern fulmar, black-legged kittiwake, razorbill, guillemot, peregrine falcon, and storm petrel. But the area is most famous for puffins.

The puffins of Skellig Michael inspired in part the “Creature Content Designers” of Star Wars to come up with those too-cute-by-far porgs, the indigenous inhabitants of Luke Skywalker’s island, named Ahch-To in the films. But the porgs have nothing on the almost comical puffin. Colorful-beaked, thousands of the birds make their home on the island to nest and rear their young during a short summer season. Sturdy and looking like they sport a cap and cloak, the seabirds have short wings that are designed for swimming underwater, yet can also carry the puffin long distances in flight.

 

 

The record of the Skellig Islands is long and can be traced in libraries and archives. The death of a monk is noted in the Martyrology of Tallaght, a manuscript dating from the end of the 8^th century. The formations appear in charts from the 14^th century and are referenced in contemporary accounts of the 1588 Spanish Armada. The first modern description of Skellig Michael is in Charles Smith’s Antient and Present State of the County of Kerry of 1756.

Some accounts in the 18^th and 19^th centuries erroneously note that the Skelligs were made up of three separate islands, as the craggy peaks appear when viewed at a distance from the mainland, and to be made of marble. The legend is that the monastery was founded by St. Finnian of Clonard, one of the fathers of Irish monasticism, although there is no evidence of this. Nicholas Carlisle’s A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (London, 1810) repeats these claims. What the various books all emphasize is the Skelligs’ remoteness and spiritual nature.

There is a lyrical, almost mystical, description in Ireland Illustrated with Pen and Pencil (1891) by Richard Lovett.

It is good for the soul to be thus lifted out of and away from all the mean and petty detail of life, to escape from the wearing friction of the selfish every-day life, and to be alone with the noblest natural features—the wide sky, the broad and health-giving ocean, the immovable rock, so firmly rooted that through countless generations the Atlantic surges have vainly thundered against it.

Lovett also informs of the features of the site, some (notably crosses and carved slabs) which have collapsed with time:

Half way up the ascent is a little valley between the two peaks, in shape something like a saddle, and known as ‘Christ’s Saddle,’ or the Garden of the Passion. From this place what is known as the Way of the Cross rises up, and at one part a rock has been shaped into the form of a rude cross.

 

 

This author also details enclosing walls, two wells, five places of entombment, and the Monks’ Garden. There were several cisterns for collecting rain water. The retaining walls created a micro-climate for growing vegetables and herbs. During a recent excavation, the garden was discovered to have peaty soil.

While inhabited for an incredibly lengthy period, the monastery was abandoned probably by the early 13^th century, while remaining as a place of periodic penitence and continued pilgrimage.  Nathaniel Parker Willis in The Scenery and Antiquities of Ireland relates the monks’ relocation to the more hospitable nearby coast:

The Skellig Islands, which lie outside the bay of Ballinskellig, have some of the romance of antiquity hanging round them … An abbey was founded … but the bleakness of the situation and the difficulty of access, induced the residences to remove in after times to the mainland, where the monastery of Ballinskellig still marks the circumstances of their change of place. (volume 2, page 102).

 

This relocation was also due to the monastic life in Ireland moving away from the ascetic Celtic model with its emphasis on solitude to the more engaged Augustinian Church.

The enigmatic island of hermetic monks, who were devoted to a life of prayer and study, has been long venerated, serving as a place of sacred pilgrimage since the medieval period, and a site to study bird life without much human interference. But can Skellig Michael survive a new type of pilgrim, the legions of Star Wars fans?

The island was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. The importance of protecting the seabird nesting habitat has long been recognized. Fragile both architecturally and topographically, visitor access has been limited and only licensed boat operators can bring passengers to disembark on the island. Despite the restrictions, the distance from the mainland, and the difficulty of the often-rough seas and arduous climb only for the able-bodied (three tourists have fallen to their deaths since 1995), the number of access permits has been recently increased to accommodate demand. There are fears the remote location is becoming a “Disneyesque theme site.” Skellig Michael is now facing the not-uncommon issues of preservation versus the impact of popularity.

There are centuries of maps, manuscripts, works of art, and books preserved in repositories such as the Smithsonian and digitized in the Biodiversity Heritage Library to stand testament to the mystical Skelligs and their astounding natural life. Surely there must be some written legend of a sea monster like the one that appears cavorting in the background in one scene in The Last Jedi? And about those sacred Jedi texts—wonderfully bound books and scrolls shelved in that tree library on the island. Like Luke, they are “the last of the Jedi religion.” Spoiler alert: the collection was apparently moved by Rey to the Millennium Falcon. Maybe a librarian will enter the scene in the next movie installment, ensuring the volumes are properly cataloged, conserved, and disseminated for the preservation of the Force.

 

Notes

“A Stunning & Dramatic Irish Island Once Inhabited by Monks.” View the Smithsonian Channel’s short and stunning video presentation here.

“An Taisce urges Minister to intervene over ‘rebranding’ of Skelling Michael,” Irish Times, December 20, 2017 (online here).

“How Porgs were Hatched” on www.starwars.com.

World Heritage Island site on Skellig Michael.

Available online is the Forgotten Hermitage of Skellig Michael, of the controversial archaeological excavations undertaken beginning in 1981.

 

 

 

 

 

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