Church

The National Monuments Service's description

Small oratory on Skellig Michael described in 1996 as follows; 'This building has been shown by excavation to have been built directly on the stone paving of the upper terrace [KE104A001105-] (Lynch 1987, 21). It was extensively renovated and conserved during OPW work in the late 1980s, when its external face above the level of the offset was rebuilt. It is of corbelled drystone construction and measures 4.05m E-W x 3.85m N-S externally. The walls, built of sandstone rubble with some quartz, rise almost vertically to the level of a 0.3m wide external offset, on average 0.85m high, above which they corbel to form the vault. Internally the side-walls commence corbelling at their base. Several nineteenth century photographs and drawings show that the external face of the dome had collapsed.
The oratory measures 2.45m x 1.85m internally. It is lit by a lintelled window in the E end-wall with slightly splayed ingoings and a stepped sill of slate. The broad ope is 0.25m high and the external sill-stone bears evidence for a shutter frame. The 1.2m high doorway in the W end-wall is double lintelled, one of which is a re-used cross-inscribed slab [KE104A001041-]. It inclines in elevation from a basal width of 0.6m to 0.46m under the head, and its lower ingoings are each formed with a single slab set on edge. A low recess occurs above the level of the doorway's lintel on both faces' (O'Sullivan and Sheehan 1996, 278-90, no. 948 (4)).

See attached LiDAR image of monastery with oratory labelled 'Small Oratory' [No. 18], taken from Bourke, Hayden and Lynch 2011, 7.

Compiled by: Elizabeth Byrne, Ursula Egan and Sheila Ronan, Archaeological Survey Unit, University College, Cork.

Revised by: Caimin O'Brien

Date of revised upload: 7 March 2022

References

Bourke, E., Hayden, A. and Lynch, A. 2011 Skellig Michael, Co. Kerry: the monastery and South Peak. Archaeological stratigraphic report: excavations 1986–2010 (E338; 90E34; 93E195). Dept. of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. Dublin.

O'Sullivan, A. and Sheehan, J. 1996 The Iveragh peninsula: an archaeological survey of South Kerry. Cork University press.