Skellig Michael, a jagged outcrop off the coast of County Kerry, was used as the location of Luke Skywalker’s hideaway in two Star Wars films, but tradition holds that human habitation on the island dates from AD600, when ascetic Irish monks began retreating to ever-more remote spots. Emma Donoghue’s brooding, dreamlike new novel, Haven, imagines who those first souls might have been and how they might have survived. Suffice to say, the refuge they imagine – somewhere far from temptation and worldly chatter – soon becomes a very different kind of place as their faith in God and one another is tested to extremes.
It all begins with a dream. In the monastery of Cluain Mhic Nóis, a celebrated visitor – a “living saint”, no less – awakens in the night convinced that he’s experienced a vision. Its meaning is clear: he must establish a new monastery on an island untainted by human existence, taking with him the two monks who featured in his dream.
