Pat O'Shea tends to a rocky island that once housed a monastic settlement, was attacked by Vikings, and is beloved by Starwars fans. ⛰️🌌
For the last 34 years, Pat O'Shea has looked after a rocky island that once housed a monastic settlement, was attacked by Vikings, and is beloved by Star Wars fans.
Pat and his colleagues at the Office of Public Works , a state agency, are the caretakers of this world-renowned rocky crag, about 12km off Ireland's south-west coast. Pat thinks that while the island's appearance in 2015's The Force Awakens and 2017's The Last Jedi brought Hollywood glamour to the area and"The Skelligs have long been an interesting place to come to well before Star Wars, but it has increased numbers," he says.
Solar panels provide electricity for their huts, which come complete with a small gas cooker, and there's also a shared composting toilet.Pat's speciality is dry-stone walling, and he's never short of tasks. Daily visitors are limited to 180, with tourists gone for the day by late afternoon, leaving just Pat and his team, three guides who live on the island on rotation throughout the summer, and the vast population of seabirds."I like the solitude and the peace of the island, but if you get a lot of cold weather, with fronts coming in and fog, you could be marooned for some time, and maybe time can feel a bit long," he says.
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