About the Island
Skellig Michael (Sceilg Mhichíl) is one of the best known landmarks in Ireland. It’s 12 kilometres (8 miles) off the coast of County Kerry, and it’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of its old monastery and seabird colonies.
A Skellig Michael boat tour lets you see the island up close without landing. From the boat you get a good view of the peaks, the monastery and the wildlife, and it’s one of the best trips on the Wild Atlantic Way.
Where is Skellig Michael? It’s about 12 kilometres off the Iveragh Peninsula in County Kerry, in the south west of Ireland. The boat trip out from Portmagee takes about 45 minutes.
A few quick facts. The island is 218 metres high and has two peaks with a dip between them called Christ’s Saddle. There are about 618 stone steps up to the monastery. It became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996, and its neighbour, Little Skellig, has one of the biggest gannet colonies in the world.
History of Skellig Michael
Skellig Michael, or Sceilg Mhichíl, has been a place of prayer and pilgrimage for over a thousand years. It’s one of the best preserved early monastic settlements in Europe.
Monks are thought to have first come to Skellig Michael in the 6th century, looking for a quiet place away from the mainland to pray. They built a monastery high above the sea, where they lived in stone beehive huts, prayed in a small oratory and grew food in little gardens on the terraces.
Life on the island was very hard. The monks had to deal with Atlantic storms, not much food and being completely cut off, and they lived on fish, seabirds and rainwater. They built the steep stone steps up from the sea by hand, and you can still see them today.
By the 12th or 13th century, the weather had got worse and the church had changed, and the monks moved to Ballinskelligs on the mainland. People kept coming to the island on pilgrimage for centuries after.
Skellig Michael today
Skellig Michael has turned up in Irish myths, folklore and books over the centuries, and more recently in Star Wars, where it was used as Luke Skywalker’s hideaway in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi.
On a Skellig Michael boat tour you can see the monastery, the lighthouse and the wildlife from the sea, and hear about the island’s long history.
The lighthouses
There are two lighthouses on Skellig Michael, both built in the 19th century to guide ships along this part of the coast. The upper one was closed in 1870, but the lower one is still working today.
The monastery
From the boat you’ll see the monastery, where early Christian monks lived from around the 6th century. You can make out the stone beehive huts (clocháns) near the top of the island and the stone stairways leading up to them. Our guides will tell you about the monks who lived there.
The rock formations
As the boat goes around Skellig Michael, you’ll get a clear view of Christ’s Saddle, the dip between the island’s two peaks, which the old pilgrim route went through. Look out for the island’s rock formations too, including sharp ridges, sea stacks and caves worn into the rock by the wind and the waves.
“The most fantastic and impossible rock in the world”
George Bernard Shaw wrote this after visiting the island in 1910
An incredible, impossible, mad place, which still tempts devotees to make “stations” of every stair landing, and to creep through “Needle’s eyes” at impossible altitudes, and kiss “stones of pain” jutting out 700 feet above the Atlantic.
The Saint Michael Line
Skellig Michael is said to be on the St Michael Line, a line of holy places dedicated to Saint Michael the Archangel that runs from Ireland to Israel. These are the places usually listed.
- Skellig Michael (Ireland)
- St Michael’s Mount (England)
- Mont Saint-Michel (France)
- Sacra di San Michele (Italy)
- Sanctuary of Monte Sant’Angelo (Italy)
- Symi Monastery (Greece)
- Mount Carmel (Israel)
All of these places are linked to Saint Michael, and people have been interested in how closely they line up for a long time. Some see it as an old pilgrim route, and others think it follows lines of energy in the earth. Nobody knows for sure.
Skellig Michael is the westernmost point on the St Michael Line, which adds to the stories and legends around the island.