This extraordinary area is home to some of the best sandstone I’ve ever touched. A vast lush valley is lined on both sides with dark purple rock, splattered with massive bands of white quartz. Unlike the desert sandstone that crumbles with the slightest touch of water, this rock has been showered on for millennia which makes it as hard as granite, and the slightest breeze dries it immediately without the seepage. My second day there, the sun came out and stayed with me for a 10-hour stretch that allowed me to solo more than 30 routes (many of them several times over for a total of 50 laps), including a fantastic line my friend Damian O’Sullivan put up called Far Away Friends, as well as some onsights in the 5.11+/5.12- range.

Con called and had me join him in the southern region of Co. Kerry to meet with a priest also named Michael (pronounced “Me-Haul” in Irish) and many of his parishioners, for a tour of the Skellig Islands. These rocky outcrops require a boat ride to get to, and are home to thousands of birds, including puffins, as well as a remarkable village that was inhabited several hundred years ago, where the people lived for twice as long as most others on the mainland. The day’s conversation with Michael and his group, mixed with the spirit of the area, was exactly what this pagan needed and gave me hope that not everyone is as hypocritical in their beliefs as America’s current paranoid administration would have us believe.