The Book of the Skelligs ed. by John Crowley and John Sheehan (review)

Reviewed by: The Book of the Skelligs ed. by John Crowley and John Sheehan Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin (bio) John Crowley and John Sheehan eds., The Book of the Skelligs (Cork: Cork University Press, 2023), 360 pages. The islands or rocks known as the Skelligs exist on the margin of experience: on the edge of one world, of a medieval world whose centre was Jerusalem or Rome, so for us a world conceivable only in historical and imagined terms, but also for the twenty-first century visitor an edge felt as total remoteness. They hover at the point where material becomes metaphor, even for people who have not set foot there. The poet Pearse Hutchinson, who never visited, wrote of coming 'Out of despair/onto a skellig of hope.' A poet who knows the place intimately, Paddy Bushe, reverses the flow of metaphor, declaring in the volume I am reviewing 'here are chains/And edicts: here also is the triumph of fear.' A place then of crowded meanings and of contradictions, of monastic stability, of occasional pilgrimage constrained by weather–there are said to be a hundred days in a year when it is possible to land–and of presence in the national imagination. The Book of the Skelligs sets out to present all this variety. It is the culmination of an editorial enterprise, of a longer process of research and one even longer of physical investigation and restoration. Carried out under the auspices of the Office of Public Works, these interventions were deliberately limited so as to leave the major features of the site, the stone huts of the monastic settlement, undisturbed. While this was partly a gesture to the future of archaeology–the expectation that less destructive ways of investigating the site will be discovered–it also evinces respect for the integrity of this wonderful place as it has come down to us. Limited excavation did take place, at points where rebuilding was necessary, and this has increased our knowledge of how the site was occupied. Information has emerged on the monks' diet, on changes to the layout of the site in the early centuries. The resulting book thus gives plenty of solid scientific fact, as well as being a tribute to a unique inheritance. It is a fine production, with photographs, mainly by Valerie O'Sullivan, which are vastly instructive, as well as beautiful, often conveying visually material essential for the [End Page 125] understanding of the text. The characteristic silhouette of the great Skellig, or Sceilg Mhichíl, juxtaposes uncompromising rock and ocean. The book too starts from the physical, the sciences of geology and biology. The biology is easier to follow, with its accounts of plants (from lichen to seaweeds) and especially birds, but also possible vanished quadrupeds. Worldwide connections exist at this level via migration–puffins fly to Newfoundland and Labrador, gannets to Morocco and Senegal. Other disciplines that contribute to our understanding include archaeology, anthropology and folklore–and of course history; they all broaden the focus with international connections, but they all draw our attention to their own limits. Archaeology describes the settlement in detail; it also places the unspeaking stone in a context, a network of other unspeaking stones in the Iveragh peninsula. It can often supply an approximate date for an artefact. Folklore gives context and a human voice but dissolves chronology. A narrative from the nearby district of Ballinskelligs, in the Schools folklore collection, can be juxtaposed with a story in a medieval German manuscript; both tell of a miraculous flow of fresh water from the Skellig rock. A seanchaí relates how working on St Michael's day was forbidden in the parish of Ballinskelligs, and supernatural punishment followed those who ignored the rule. Legends and beliefs testify to the importance of the Skelligs for the local mental map, and in sporadic, tantalising hints, to its wider reputation. The contemporary visitor will have arrived on the Skellig passing through a kind of initiation, facing the reality of space traversed, the force of the Atlantic (even on a calm day a great swaying), to land in a precipitous setting that focuses the mind on danger and the need for care...