Review warns of Skellig ‘scramble’

SCALING the steps to the Skellig Michael monastery is like “a mountaineering activity”, known as “scrambling”, in which the hands are used to balance, a safety review has warned.

There are several locations along the entire climb to the monastery which present a high risk of a fall, the report has found. There have been three deaths and five cases of injuries and “the likelihood is that a person will be killed as a result of a fall on the Skellig Michael between one in five and once in 50 years”, it says.

However the review says no fencing should be erected along the route, a contentious issue from the point of view of conservation, but makes strong recommendations on warning recreational visitors.