Quest & Chorus #5: Crossing the Waves to Skellig Michael (special feat: Folk Songs & Stories #309)

The sea around Skellig Michael never rests. Waves slam the cliffs like a heartbeat, and mist rises from the rocks like breath from some sleeping giant. Eight miles off the Kerry coast, this jagged island looks less like a piece of earth and more like a fragment of another world.

More than a thousand years ago, monks climbed 600 stone steps to live here, chasing silence, prayer, and the edge of heaven. Today, visitors come for the same reason, though they may not know it. Whether you're drawn by faith, history, or a galaxy far, far away, Skellig has a way of making you listen to what the sea remembers.

And that's where today's story begins — between exile and return, faith and freedom, stone and surf. Because sometimes, we're all just trying to find our way back to the ocean. With Music from Niamh Dunne, Wolf Loescher, and Jocelyn Pettit & Ellen Gira.

This is Quest & Chorus #309

0:58 - Niamh Dunne "Ballyneety's Walls" from Portraits

4:17 - WELCOME TO QUEST & CHORUS

Welcome to Quest & Chorus, where every wave might carry a myth, and every exile still dreams of home. I'm your bard, Marc Gunn, also host of the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast, and typically host of this show as Folk Songs & Stories, but today, we call it Quest & Chorus. And today, we drift to the edge of the world, To Skellig Michael, where the sea swallows history and monks once whispered their prayers to gulls. It's also where a Jedi gave up the fight. And where a selkie sings himself back into the sea. Today's theme may seem like exile or perhaps it's where you truly belong.

Quest & Chorus is a 6-part podcast series. I fuse my love of Celtic and folk music, science fiction and fantasy, and travel into a podcast with a quest. In each episode, you will get a clue to unlock a secret reward. And at the end of the season, you will combine all of those clues to unlock an even bigger amazing reward.

If you're new to the show, please follow us. You can do that at PubSong.com.

UPCOMING SHOWS

NOV 1: Georgia Renaissance Festival Fall Festival, Fairburn, GA NOV 8: IrishFest Atlanta, Roswell, GA with Inara NOV 14-16: CONjuration, Duluth, GA NOV 22: Georgia Renaissance Festival Fall Festival, Fairburn, GA DEC 6: Georgia Renaissance Festival Fall Festival, Fairburn, GA DEC 7: Nerdy Wonderland at The Lost Druid, Avondale Estates, GA @ 12 - 5 PM. 6:24 - Wolf Loescher "Rovin' Journeyman" from Child of Alba

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