County: Kerry Site name: SOUTH PEAK, SKELLIG MICHAEL
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 104A001 Licence number: 93E0195 EXT.
Author: Alan Hayden, Archaeological Projects Ltd, 27 Coulson Avenue, Rathgar, Dublin 6.
Site type: Early ecclesiastic hermitage
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 424676m, N 560649m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 51.770662, -10.540524
Excavations funded by the OPW were undertaken on the South Peak Hermitage in conjunction with conservation works. The ‘garden’ and ‘oratory’ terraces were almost fully excavated this year.
The only feature uncovered on the garden terrace consisted of a low reinforcing wall laid in a trench immediately inside the terrace wall to prevent the latter from collapsing further inwards.
Excavation on the oratory terrace revealed that the full plan of the oratory survived, albeit in a slightly warped fashion, as the structure had partly collapsed down a ravine. The foundations of a stone altar were uncovered in the oratory. A low curving wall was revealed at the west end of the terrace. The leacht and base for an upright cross slab were also fully revealed, but the interior of the leacht was not excavated. The surviving parts of the terrace walls and their foundation features were also revealed. The narrow terrace around the slab shrine east of the oratory was also excavated.
