Once a primitive Christian monastery of intense isolation, the Irish island of Skellig Michael has become a tourist attraction, a destination for modern pilgrims, even a movie set. Ireland’s government granted access for the Star Wars reboot in spite of the island’s status as a wildlife refuge and UNESCO world heritage site. Tour guides bear witness to the chaos of the filming, the hordes of costumed acolytes that followed. The island has again become a site of pilgrimage, this time for acolytes of a new filmic religion. The author reflects on this historical rhyme as he climbs the island’s precipitous South Peak, the first visitor in decades permitted to do so, and stands at the spot where a solitary monk once lived in unutterable solitude.

Cover photograph by Barron Brown