Where would you go?
To Skellig Michael. I went there in 1989 after my mother died and I had become rather agitated about my Irish identity because I had parked it with my mother. We started having holidays in the Gaeltacht; that year I got a boat to Skellig Michael and went to the monastery at the top. It’s extraordinary. I was very moved and intrigued by it … it’s bleak and beautiful. I had to rush away because the boat man came up and said, if you want to get off the island, you have to go now … there’s a force nine gale coming. We were indeed blown back on a force nine gale … it was terrifying but an incredibly memorable event. I would like to see the monastery again in the right circumstances. It has all the rawness of Irish Catholicism but romantic with it. It’s also visited by Star Wars fans nowadays, but I would go in a Christian spirit.
