Title: The Skeilic Altarpiece

 

Materials:  Inks, gold leaf, air-dried clay, found objects

 

In 2011, someone told me the old stone cottages at Cill Rialaig in Ballinskelligs, Co. Kerry could have been a monastic ‘boot camp’ for Great Skellig.

As a result, I considered the possibility that there may have been a monk who couldn’t accept the extreme hardship, who decided to walk away and wander around Ireland.

In 2014 this possibility emerged as an epic poem titled - Wanderer.

Extract:

Winter Journey VII  - Invisible Music

 

A stranger in the sleeping village sees the monk’s pain.

He hears Mhicil’s sadness as songs to be sung forever.

A wandering monk’s despair, becomes night music:

an invisible final blessing.

 

The Skeilic Altarpiece is a portable devotional object supposedly containing rock relics from Skeilic Mhicil.  Dated circa 1200 CE, it was discovered hidden in a wall at Corcomroe Abbey, Co. Clare. Local legend tells of a monk who sang songs of such beauty people remember them as blessings.

The Skeilic Altarpiece is believed to be the only one in existence, although rumour has it another may be hidden in the shelves of Trinity Library, Dublin.