Skelligs an example of how to keep legacies rock steady

SKELLIG Michael is to become part of an international campaign to inform communities around the world about the impact of climate change on World Heritage sites. The Great Skellig is one of ten World Heritage sites to be selected for the ICOMOS National Geographic Preserving Legacies: A Future for our Past.

The only European site selected, it is joined by Petra in Jordan, the Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras, Angkor Archaeological Park in Cambodia, Border Fields in the US, Historical Mosque City of Bagerhat in Bangladesh, Nan Madol in Micronesia, Levuka in Fiji, Koutammakou at Togo and Benin and Port, Fortress, and Group of Monuments at Cartagena, Colombia.

The ongoing project will inform ‘on the implications of climate change on the World Heritage sites, and to enable them to safeguard their cultural and natural heritage’.

Well, nowhere better than the Skelligs, the ultimate in ecclesiastical retreats. Some 10 tricky enough kilometres out into the Atlantic, the forbidding peaks of the Skelligs are today the des res of thousands of puffins and gannets. But more than a millennium ago this was home to a community of Anchorite monks.

A 1,000-year-old stone staircase still leads up to the little ‘beehive’ huts of the holy men (left). These were the most westerly souls in the Old World, and their isolated conditions were hard. The life of Trappist monks would have been luxurious compared to what these gents had to endure.

The Skelligs have featured in ancient Irish legends and were even visited by Vikings. But it wasn’t until 2014 that these remote peaks welcomed their strangest visitor yet — when film stars fetched up to film Star Wars Episode VIII. Interest predictably grew but the OPW enforced regulations limiting tourists.

So it’s peaceful now — except for the sound of a million seabirds and the Atlantic Ocean thundering against the rocks.