Abstract
Finalist for the Dublin Literary Award. In a time of plague and terror, three men abandon their familiar world and set out in a small boat for an island they don't know exists, with only faith and devotion to guide them. In seventh-century Ireland, a scholar priest named Artt has a dream in which God tells him to leave the sinful world behind. With two monks—young Trian and old Cormac—he rows down the River Shannon in search of an isolated spot in which to found a monastery. Drifting out into the Atlantic, the three men find the impossibly steep, bare island known today as Skellig Michael. In such a place, what will survival mean?