County: Kerry Site name: SKELLIG MICHAEL (Monks’ Garden), Great Skellig
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 104:001 Licence number: —
Author: Edward Bourke, National Monuments Service
Site type: Ecclesiastical enclosure
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 424838m, N 560725m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 51.771395, -10.538216
Excavation in advance of conservation works took place over a fourteen-week period between May and September 1996. The work again concentrated on the Lower Monks’ Garden (see Excavations 1995, 41). Work on the retaining wall was completed and excavation commenced on the steps between the entrance to the Lower Monks’ Garden and the entrance to the inner enclosure. Conservation work continued on the outer wall of the garden and a re-survey of the garden was commenced. The ‘souterrain’ west of the cells in the inner enclosure was excavated, and it was determined that this structure was in fact a cistern similar to those beneath the cells in the inner enclosure. This feature contained only modern material and will be conserved in 1997.
Dept. of Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, 51 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2
