May the Fourth Be With You
On this Star Wars Day, we wish “May the Fourth be with You” to Star Wars fans and architecture lovers alike!
In honor of this fun and popular “holiday,” we bring you some Star Wars-related architectural trivia that we are sure hardcore fans of Star Wars already know, but others may find interesting. In the latest movie trilogy, an older and cynical Luke Skywalker is found sequestered on a small, rugged island on the planet Ahch-To, home of the ancient, original Jedi Temple. These scenes were filmed on Skellig Michael, an island 8 nautical miles off the southwest coast of Ireland that is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It is home to one of the world’s best-preserved examples of the early Christian monastic tradition. The structures featured in the movies are the beehive huts of the ancient monastery.
Christian settlement on the island began between the 6th and 8th centuries. At that time in Europe, the monastic tradition was heavily influenced by the ascetic tradition that sprang from the seat of Christianity in Judea with many monks and mystics taking to the desert to sequester themselves away from the world to better contemplate the mystery of God. In the absence of a suitable desert, the forbidding isolation of Skellig, at the edge of the known world, fulfilled many of the same functions.
The monks established the monastery on the slopes of the north-eastern peak of the island as it was sheltered from the fiercest of the prevailing winds. The monastery, home to no more than a dozen monks at any time, is comprised of a number of structures, including:
A large and small oratory built in the shape of upturned boats.
Several beehive huts which served as the monks’ dwellings.
An altar for the celebration of Mass and other religious ceremonies
St Michael’s Church – a small church that was built early in the monastery’s existence, that was later expanded and rebuilt around the middle of the 11th century, when the island was dedicated to St. Michael.
A cemetery where a number of monks are buried.
The cemetery and large oratory
The beehive huts where the monks lived
The Beehive huts, or clocháns in Gaelic, are constructed using flat stones, without the use of mortar. The stones were laid in a corbelled pattern, forming a rough dome shape, with an open oculus at the top to allow smoke to escape. The huts are curved on the outside and square on the inside.
On the Eastern side of the island, a smaller, more isolated hermitage was created on the higher second peak that would serve as a place of isolation and contemplation for a single monk who would spend weeks at a time there.
The monastery was abandoned sometime around the 12th Century due to changing weather conditions which made living on the island even more challenging than it had been and also due to changes in the formal religious structures in effect in the monks’ religious orders. By this time, the monastery had fallen under the charge of the Augustinian order who were responsible for building St. Michael’s Church on the island. Following the abandonment of the monastery, the island became a common place of pilgrimage.
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