Down the East Steps, Skellig Michael, Kerry

There are three staircases on Skellig Michael. Most people only ever see the South Steps, the current route from the boat landing to the monastery. But the East Steps are the ones that stay with you. They're the steepest of the three, dropping away from the monastery at a gradient that makes your knees think twice. And here's the thing: they end in midair. The original base was blasted away in the 1800s during lighthouse construction, so this ancient stairway, over a thousand years old, simply stops. The monks carved these into raw rock six hundred feet above the Atlantic, and now the bottom just isn't there anymore.

I made this photograph looking down towards Little Skellig and the Iveragh Peninsula on a quiet evening. The cloud had been heavy all day, but it was beginning to break apart, and a band of diffused golden light reached across the water between the two Skelligs. Little Skellig was lit up, that dense white mass of gannets visible even at distance, the mainland sitting low on the horizon beyond.

The stone terracing on the right gives you some sense of the gradient. These were built by people with no fear of exposure, who needed to move between the monastery and the sea with purpose. Standing there with nothing between you and open ocean, you understand why they chose this place!

Read the full story of the island's history and find practical information on visiting Skellig Michael in my complete guide.