Skellig Michael’s sister crag of Little Skellig, off the Kerry coast, was long thought to be so inaccessible that only gannets, fulmars and puffins could inhabit it. Now the remains of an early Christian oratory have been discovered there by archaeologist Michael Gibbons and a team of climbers.
“The ultimate monastic site” is how Gibbons describes the location of the oratory. He examined it on a recent expedition to the isolated crag, which is 13km west of the Iveragh peninsula.
Gibbons believes the oratory may have been used by one or two monks as a type of “extreme penitence”, and was supported from the main monastery on Skellig Michael, where vegetables were grown.
Little Skellig — or Sceilig Bheag — is a protected bird colony,