J W Healy

(Fewer)

 John Healy was born in 1895, possibly in Kerry, but lived in Dublin as a teenager and walked extensively in Dublin/Wicklow hills.  The events of the second decade of 20th C in Ireland and Europe seem not to have affected him greatly -  he signed the visitor's book at Mc Guirk's on 1st November 1913 and recorded a substantial walk, with a couple of friends, of about 56km.

After graduating in medicine from UCD in 1918, he went to England that year and took up a temporary commission with the RAF that allowed him to further his hillwalking in Wales and Cumberland. He later worked as a doctor in the South Western Fever Hospital in Stockwell and became Deputy Medical Superintendent with London County Council.

Diablons. Wikipedia

Elected to membership of the Alpine Club in 1935 he recorded on his application form (as John Weston Healy) that he did a  'Traverse of the three peaks of Diablons - via Col deTrocuit & SE arete' in 1923,    a traverse of the Matterhorn fom Breuil to Zermatt in 1924 and climbed Mt Blanc in 1925.

  Dr. Healy was highly regarded for his technical knowledge of Alpine topography. Notably, he was a pioneer in identifying massive, steep climbing faces in Europe. During a notable club lecture, he introduced British climbers to the sheer face of the Glärnisch rising directly above the Klöntalersee lake. His analysis helped establish it among contemporaries as one of the premier vertical walls in the Alps.  Although he may not have climbed any really hard routes he was active in the Alps well into the 1950s, mostly with a guide in his early days and guideless in later years.

What is believed to be the first official meet of the Alpine Club was in Langdale in 1941, attended by its president Geoffrey Winthrop Young and others, including  J W Healy.  He was also a member of the Swiss Alpine Club (Association of British Members of SAC) acting as a Vice President from 1956 to '58; also the first overseas member of the IMC (Irish Mountaineering Club), if not one of its founding members. 

Djouce. Cormac Keenan

 After his retirement he returned to Ireland, lived in Sandymount and attended many IMC lectures. He died in 1975 and had claimed that his mountaineering inspiration ..

'for me it was the schoolboy's memory of seeing suddenly the summit of Djouce shining with snow in the sunshine'. (IMC Journal '73).

Go to     Home  for full site map

'Old Bags' - A climbing senator

 John Philip Bagwell, (‘Jack’) (1874–1946), railway executive and politician, was born 11 August 1874, only son of the historian Richard Bagwell, of Marlfield, Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, and Harriet Bagwell (née Newton) of Co. Carlow. He was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Oxford.

Wikipedia (2010)

Bagwell in 1922 (Wikipedia)

After Oxford, he joined the Midland Railway (England), where he served as an assistant superintendent of line (1905–9). He then returned to Ireland and served as superintendent of passenger services (1910–11) and general manager of the Great Northern Railway (1911–26).

Le Brévant and Aiguille de la Gliere were his first Alpine forays with the guide Joseph Devouassey, when he was about 19 years old (1892).  His interest in climbing may have been inspired by his familiarity with the Comeragh Mountains of which, it was later claimed, he knew every inch.

In 1899, with the same mountain guide, he traveled to Western Canada and climbed Cheops and Eagle Peak in the Selkirks.

In 1922 he was one of W. T. Cosgrave's nominees to the senate, where he courageously served till its abolition in 1936, being reelected in November 1928 and November 1934 and it was that year that he returned to Alpine climbing (Aig du Moine; Aig des Petit Charmoz).

The following year (1923), because of his position as Senator in the Free State Government there was an arson attack on his home at Marlfield and he was kidnapped by anti-treaty forces in Howth and was incarcerated in a house in rural Co Meath.  After making his excape, he later claimed,  that it was his fitness that allowed him to race across the countryside before getting a lift by car back to safety in Dublin. The Press Association said: President Cosgrave paid a visit to Senator Bagwell at the Kildare street Club, Dublin, last evening and said that Mr. Bagwell appeared to be nothing the worse for his adventure and it added that Senator Bagwell crossed from Ireland last night, and will rest in the South of England.

This seems not to have affected his climbing for in that year he made a number of Alpine ascents, including Mt Blanc (Aigs de l'M, Petit Charmoz, Grand Charmoz, La Floriaz). The folowing three seasons saw him revisiting the Alps where he climbed numerous routes with the guides Camille and Benoit Couttet, including Mt Blanc for a second time.

In 1926 he was elected a member of the Alpine Club being proposed by W.T Kirkpatrick who was a friend.  Another friend was FS Smythe who stayed with him at Marlfield and walked with him over his favourite Comeragh Mountains.. His climbing record after that remains to be discovered.

Coumshingaun in Winter

Mahon Falls, Comeraghs

 Go to Home for full site map