left The hermitage of St Colman Mac Duagh (AD 560-632) who spent two periods of his life as a religious recluse still survives in a forest glade with a spring at the foot of Slievecarran in the Burren National Park in County Clare. It serves as a type site for similar retreats, which typically consist of a cave and a chapel. Although located in an isolated setting, it was still within half-a day’s walk of the royal court and port at Kinvara, and the monastic centre at Kilmacduagh.

Seeking seclusion: medieval hermitages in Britain and Ireland

Medieval monasteries and their communities have been (and continue to be) well studied, but not so the structures associated with those who chose a more solitary route to salvation: hermits and anchorites. Dr Simon Roffey’s new book, An Archaeological History of Hermitages and Eremitic Communities in Medieval Britain and Beyond, sets out to remedy that omission, as Chris Catling reports.

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Current Archaeology

May 30, 2023

In CA 398 we explored the exceptional early medieval remains of Skellig Michael, with its terracing, beehive huts, and chapels. Located off the coast of County Kerry, it is a place battered by cold Atlantic rain and winds, and thus a fitting environment in which religious people could test their spiritual resilience through penitential isolation and deprivation. For those who hankered after even more harsh and ascetic conditions than the communal life of the islet’s small monastic settlement, though, there was another option: the difficult and hazardous climb to the Hermitage, an isolated retreat located just below the crest of the South Peak. The hermitage of St Colman Mac Duagh (AD 56

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