{"id":453953,"date":"2026-05-17T20:56:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T20:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/453953\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T20:56:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T20:56:12","slug":"if-i-didnt-do-it-now-i-would-be-too-old-skellig-michael-opens-to-first-summer-weekend-visitors-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/453953\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018If I didn\u2019t do it now, I would be too old\u2019: Skellig Michael opens to first summer weekend visitors \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first weekend visitors of the season to Skellig Michael<\/a>, the monastic island off the Co Kerry<\/a> coast, were treated to a blast of sunshine and blue skies on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The island, an Unesco<\/a> world heritage site, opened to tourists last Tuesday but bad weather and choppy seas meant Saturday was just the third day visitors could land here this year.<\/p>\n

It was not until 15 minutes into the 75-minute boat trip from Ballinskelligs that there was an audible yelp from passengers being ferried over a heaving sea on the Force Awakens, a boat named after the Star Wars movie filmed on Skellig Michael in 2014.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat has kind of died away,\u201d says boatman David Walsh on the number of Star Wars fans who venture out to Luke Skywalker\u2019s fictional refuge.<\/p>\n

A kind westerly wind made Saturday\u2019s landing on the east pier smooth for the boat and 14 others that hold permits to land 180 people \u2013 12 to a boat \u2013 every day on the towering crag George Bernard Shaw once called an \u201cincredible, impossible, mad place\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"LittleLittle Skellig as photographed from Skellig Michael. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw\/The Irish Times <\/p>\n

\u201cThat is for safety of the visitors,\u201d says Maggie Keane, the island\u2019s supervisor guide, explaining the visitor cap, \u201cbut also because it is a special protection area for birds. It is a very fragile site.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bad weather last September, and a row at the start of last year\u2019s season between boatmen and the Office of Public Works, the Government agency and custodian of the island, shortened the 2025 landing season. <\/p>\n

The island usually opens from mid-May to the end of September but given how bad September\u2019s weather was, Walsh thinks the island should open from mid-April.<\/p>\n

\"ApproximatelyApproximately 8,000 puffins breed on Skellig every year. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw\/The Irish Times <\/p>\n

\u201cWe would be very lucky to get 80 to 85 [landings] this year,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Walsh\u2019s father Brendan, who drives the boat, first brought visitors to the Skellig in 1982 when it cost \u00a38 a passenger (it is \u20ac160 a head today).<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Skellig Michael vulnerable to climate change and Atlantic weather extremes, report showsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were no guides, no permits needed. You just got a boat and came out here,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Others already landed on Saturday were the island\u2019s birds including razorbills, storm petrels, Manx shearwaters and, of course, the Skellig\u2019s famous puffins (there are about 8,000 here), the bright-beaked, burrowing seabirds whose moos and moans provide a soundtrack for tourists ascending the 600 steps to the monastery atop the Skellig.<\/p>\n

Visitors laugh awkwardly when Keane explains how the monks ate puffins and their eggs (among other things) to sustain themselves when they lived here in their beehive huts between the 6th and 12th centuries.<\/p>\n

At any one time there are three guides on the island along with a number of workmen. Guides work two weeks on, one week off and there is not much in the way of modern conveniences, though there is a solar panel to run a fridge.<\/p>\n

\"MaggieMaggie Keane, OPW supervisor Guide, visitors leave the Skelligs ‘with a different perspective’. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw\/The Irish Times <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a great view for breakfast,\u201d says Keane.<\/p>\n

Visitors come to the Skellig for different reasons, she adds, \u201cbut you leave with a different perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BarryBarry Healy from Cork and his brother-in-law Charlie Bonin (63) from Australia descending the steps from the monastery on Skellig Michael. Photo: Simon Carswell <\/p>\n

Charlie Bonin (63), from Australia, descends the steps from the monastery slowly \u2013 \u201cI have a dodgy knee\u201d \u2013 with Irish brother-in-law Barry Healy. The Skellig \u201cwas on his bucket list\u201d, says Healy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said if I didn\u2019t do it now, I would be too old,\u201d says Bonin.<\/p>\n

Lucy Karanfilian, from New York, made sure she was the first person up the steps into the monastery. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is such an extraordinary place,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Rebecca Gill, from Cork, says it is \u201clovely to get a glimpse of what life was like hundreds of years ago in Ireland\u201d, while Denis O\u2019Riordan, travelling with her, notes that it seems \u201cso untouched from nearly 1,000 years ago\u201d. <\/p>\n

\"LucyLucy Karanfilian from New York awaiting her boat at the east pier on Skellig Michael. Photo: Simon Carswell <\/p>\n

At the monastery, John O\u2019Neill, from California, ponders the reclusive lives of the \u201ctough\u201d monks in such a remote, weather-beaten spot. \u201cHow did these men live out here?\u201d<\/p>\n

He thinks it \u201cappropriate\u201d that he and his companion Terry find themselves on this particular island on a holiday away from the US under president Donald Trump. <\/p>\n

\u201cSkellig Michael has been a place of refuge for many centuries \u2013 it feels like that a bit for us too,\u201d says Terry, smiling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first weekend visitors of the season to Skellig Michael, the monastic island off the Co Kerry coast,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453954,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,7727,43,32235,27991],"class_list":["post-453953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kerry","tag-news","tag-office-of-public-works","tag-unesco"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}