Background

Background: There are no very big mountains on the island of Ireland. The highest Irish mountain, Carrauntoohill (Corrán Tuathail) is a little higher than 1,000m. There is no summit that cannot be reached by walking, yet there are many regions that are enjoyed by hillwalkers, hikers and climbers. Although the altitude of such regions is hardly more than Spain's Meseta, due to the combination of altitude and latitude such terrain is agriculturally unproductive , being used mainly as rough grazing for sheep. Many people enjoy mountain activities such as hiking and climbing in Ireland and over the centuries many people have travelled from Ireland to perform feats of mountaineering in the Greater Ranges of the world.

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Friday, March 31, 2023

Playground of Europe

 'How the English made the Alps'  is Jim Ring's book in which he explains how the English, during the 19th century, were gradually taking over the Alps, scaling their peaks, driving railways through them, and introducing both winter sports and their social institutions.

As we have seen,  this movement was driven by the influence of the Romantic poets, painters, writers and the impresario Albert Smith;  the effect of which was that an alpine visit - 'glacier tourism' - became an essential part of the Grand Tour that became an almost mandatory part of the education of a certain class.

As Jim Ring points out, from the point of view of  the locals, the tourists in question were 'English speaking' but were, in fact, English, Irish, Scots and Welsh. 

Of course there were people in the 'Alpine' countries who were exploring their mountains, e.g. -:

Gottlieb Studer (1804-1890) was Swiss and a prolific climber and topographer - '(his) descriptions of the less known parts of the Alpine chains, are appreciated by all Alpine travellers'' (John Ball, 1st President of the Alpine Club).

Placidus a Spescha, (1752-1833) also Swiss, a Benedictine monk and self taught mountaineer, spent fifty years exploring and climbing and was a pioneer of alpinism in the eastern Swiss Alps up to 1833.

Peter Carl Thurwieser (1789-1865) was a pioneer in the Austrian Alps, had many first ascents and was 'the first man who climbed for the sake of climbing... the first real "mountaineer"', according to WAB Coolidge.

John Ball


However, it was the surge in British, i.e. English speaking, tourists that led to  the designation of a ten year period, 1854 -1865, as the Golden Age of Alpinism.  During this period 36 summits higher than 4,000m were first climbed, 31 of them by British parties with their guides; hidden under this term, a significant number of the leading figures were from Ireland.

This 'Golden Age' saw the foundation of the Alpine Club (1857), a London gentlemen's club, the world's first mountaineering association, that was described  disparagingly as a club for 'walking steeply uphill'.

Its first president was John Ball, born in Dublin and an indefatigable Alpine traveller who explored the whole range of the Alps before and after the arrival  of the railways.

More on the Irish in the Golden Age of Alpinism to follow.


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