I live on Valentia Island in Kerry but I am not from here. I am a “blow-in” and when I first started visiting these parts I had never heard of Skellig Michael. How is this possible? How does every textbook in every school not contain a study on this majestic rock? It fits into every area of the curriculum: geography, history, religion, architecture, biology and now, film studies.
I discovered that some people living here have never visited Skellig Michael despite it being on their doorstep. In some ways I understand this. We are spoiled for beautiful scenery in this area and as Oscar Wilde said, “Beauty is dimmed to us by the mist of familiarity.”
On my first trip to Skellig Michael in 2014 I had the same reaction of awe that everyone has upon seeing the striking rock rising unexpectedly from the Atlantic Ocean. It has an other-worldly quality and seems to occupy a time, space and energy all of its own. I am not an expert on force fields, or anything Star Wars related, but you only have to see the Skellig bathed in its own unique light to wonder if maybe it does have its own special energy. Something certainly draws people to it and has done for centuries.
Geoffrey Moorhouse, in the book Sun Dancing – A Medieval Vision, describes seeing the islands for the first time and knowing that he “would be forever restless until I had stepped foot on them.” Playwright George Bernard Shaw said of it “the thing does not belong to any world that you and I have lived and worked in: it is part of our dream world”. In more recent times actor Mark Hamill, who plays Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars franchise, said, “it’s like a fairytale”.
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On my first visit, I noticed something in particular. In the ruined church in the ancient monastery at the very summit of this triangular island there is a grave. It is marked by a singular carved headstone. The inscription told me that here lay two brothers. Patrick and William Callaghan, sons of a lighthouse keeper who lost their lives on Skellig Michael. Patrick died in 1868, at the age of two years and nine months and William, in 1869, at the age of four years and nine months.
I was the mother of two young children similar in age to Patrick and William. I could not imagine the heartbreak of losing two children at such a young age, so close together. How did their mother, who brought them to Skellig Michael to live, bear this loss?
I was astonished to discover that these offshore lighthouses did not have access to a boat. The rationale for this was that the lighthouse could end up unmanned if the keeper went to the assistance of a boat in distress and was himself lost
Life in Ireland in the 1860s was harsh. The Great Famine was a recent event and poverty and hunger were familiar to most. The life of the lighthouse keeper and his family was a desirable one. A good salary, a comfortable, furnished place to live and a generous supply of food and coal throughout the year. They wanted for nothing, except perhaps safety. I read of one offshore lighthouse station where the custom was to tether small children to the rock-face to allow them the freedom of playing outside in the air without the risk of them falling into the sea. Patrick and William’s mother would have had much to be thankful for but would also have had her hands full trying to keep these two boys safe on a vertiginous rock in the middle of the Atlantic.
Add to their remote location the lack of contact with the mainland. The Callaghans lived on Skellig Michael in the days before radio, telephone or telegraph. The only means of communication was via a passing boat that could be summoned or the tender ship that brought supplies a few times a year.
There were two lighthouses on Skellig Michael originally, commissioned by George Halpin in 1820. Construction got underway in 1821. The north landing at Blue Cove and the accompanying path and steps were already in place thanks to the monks. The east landing road near Blind Man’s Cove required the blasting of tonnes of rock into the sea for its construction. Conditions were difficult and tragedy struck when one workman was killed during the rockblasting in 1825. The lights were operational by December 1826. The upper lighthouse was discontinued in 1870 when the lighthouse on neighbouring Inishtearaght began operation. The families continued to live alongside the lighthouse keepers until 1901 when dwelling houses were built for them in Knightstown on Valentia Island.
I was astonished to discover that these offshore lighthouses did not have access to a boat. The rationale for this was that the lighthouse could end up unmanned if the keeper went to the assistance of a boat in distress and was himself lost. Also, I imagine, the temptation would be to leave the island in the boat, even if only for a day’s fishing.
My imagination took me to a scenario where this young mother, striving to keep her boys safe, was faced with the tragedy of being stranded here, without means of communication, without means of transport, unable to summon help or medicine if some accident or illness was to befall them.
Still my imagination refused to relinquish the image of the little grave, two brothers buried together for eternity at the top of a remote island
I returned to Portmagee filled with curiosity for these boys and their story and began to research. There was only one piece of information on record relating to the Callaghans. In April 1869 the father, William, wrote a letter to the Board of the Irish Lights requesting transfer from Skellig Michael. Not because of the boys’ passing but because a third child, Mary Anne, who was born on Skellig Michael, “lay gravely ill”. My heart broke again for the poor mother, two children buried in the monastery and her new baby now also ill. There was no death certificate to be found for Patrick and William and no clue as to the cause of their death. But a search of death records for that era showed that many children died of illnesses such as whooping cough, measles and scarlet fever that now are survivable.
Other evidence from Skellig Michael underlines the dangers of the physical landscape there. Michael Wishart fell to his death in 1828 while collecting grass for his cow and another lightkeeper, Redmond, lost a son who fell near Blue Cove.
I spoke to a local historian, John Golden, who told me the boys’ mother’s name was Kate. Using the Irish Genealogy website I was able to find the marriage certificate for Kate and William and birth certificates for the boys. Lighthouse families often moved from lighthouse to lighthouse and knowing this I managed to trace the family all the way from Skellig Michael to Inishowen in Donegal via Tarbert, Fenit and many other stations.
There, I discovered, in the last will and testament of William Callaghan, that tragedy had followed them, taking a further four children. The will states that at the time of his death in 1894 William was survived by just one son.
Still my imagination refused to relinquish the image of the little grave, two brothers buried together for eternity at the top of a remote island, grieved for by their heartbroken mother who then had to leave them behind in order to deliver her living child to safety.
I am grateful to those who remembered the boys, to Richard Foran who was the catalyst for a new gravestone to be crafted by Valentia Island sculptor Alan Hall and to the Skellig Experience Visitor Centre who display the original gravestone for all to see. My novel, The Lighthouse Keeper’s Wife, is inspired by the story of these two boys and their mother, and I hope it will also keep them in people’s memories.
– The Lighthouse Keeper’s Wife by June O’Sullivan is published by Poolbeg Press
