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Skellig Michael
| Site number: | 757 |
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| Type of site: | Cultural | |
| Date: | 7th century | |
| Date of Inscription: | 1996 | |
| Location: | Europe, Ireland, County Kerry | |
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Other languages: Finnish, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian-bokmål, Portuguese, Swedish
Other languages: Finnish, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian-bokmål, Portuguese, Swedish
| Description: | This monastic complex has been sitting on the steep banks of the rocky island of Skellig Michael since around the 7th century. Lying about 12 km off the coast of south-west Ireland, the site exemplifies the very Spartan subsistence of the first Irish Christians. Until recently, the extreme isolation of Skellig Michael has discouraged visitors, and has thus managed to preserve quite exceptionally. --WHMNet paraphrase from the description at WHC Site, where additional information is available. | |
| Skellig Michael (from Sceilig Mhichíl in the Irish language, meaning Michael's rock), also known as Great Skellig, is a steep rocky island about 15 kilometres west of the coast of County Kerry, Ireland. It is the larger of the two Skellig Islands. For 600 years the island was an important centre of monastic life for Irish Christian monks. An Irish Celtic monastery, which is situated almost at the summit of the 230-metre-high rock, was built in 588, and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. It is one of Europe's better known but least accessible monasteries. Since the extreme remoteness of Skellig Michael has until recently discouraged visitors, the site is exceptionally well preserved. The very spartan conditions inside the monastery illustrate the ascetic lifestyle practiced by early Irish Christians. The monks lived in stone 'beehive' huts (clochans), perched above nearly vertical cliff walls. --Wikipedia. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. | ||
| Source: | http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/757 | |
| Reference: | 1. UNESCO World Heritage Center, Site Page. | |