DIVINE WAKE-UP CALL

Aedamar Kirrane, from Dublin, Ireland

One summer’s evening in 2007, I was walking along the Atlantic coastline of Valentia Island in County Kerry. I was on holiday with my family in this remote part of the west coast of Ireland. As I walked, I looked out on the famously beautiful view of the Skellig Islands – these are two mountainous outcrops in the Atlantic Ocean which were inhabited in the Middle Ages by monks and mystics.

I no longer knew who I was or where I was

Gazing at the Skellig rocks, I began to feel myself detaching from ordinary reality. This strange feeling increased until I reached the small, secluded cove of Glanleam. The sun was setting, turning the sky a fiery shade of red and orange, and as I stood on the beach, with the waves lapping gently on the shore,