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| Courtesy: F Nugent & Barrington family |
Richard Manliffe Barrington was half-brother to Charles, and was the only son of their father's second wife (Huldah Strangman). Born in 1849 at Fassaroe, Barrington was a delicate youngster, with a keen interest in natural science. He was educated mainly at home, with the exception of one year at a day-school in Bray. He entered TCD (1866), graduating with honours (1870) in experimental and natural science.
In 1875 he was called to the bar, but soon found the life of a land valuer and farmer more to his liking. After the death of his father (1877) he became more involved with the management of the farm at Fassaroe.
Growing up, he spent many weeks every summer on the islands, mountains and lakes of the south and west of Ireland gathering notes on plants and birds. Along with another Trinity educated mountaineer, Henry Chichester Hart, he contributed to Alexander Goodman More's 1872 publication, Cybele Hibernica.
On a visit to London in that year (1872) he attended a lecture in the Royal Institution given by John Tyndall and on his return went on a hillwalking holiday in Killarney where they went to the Gap of Dunloe, climbed Carrantuohill (with a local guide) and Mangerton, got a little lost in the fog on Mount Brandon, climbed Eagle Mountain and hiked around the area before returning to Dublin by train.
1876 saw his first Alpine sojourn, when he repeated his half-brother's ascent of the Eiger and it was by his encouragement that Charles wrote an account for the Alpine Club of his own ascent, confirming that it was, in fact, the first ascent of that summit.
His interest in botany and ornithology continued and he visited the western islands of Ireland and Scotland, Lough Erne and Ben Bulben, and visited Iceland in 1881, hiking extensively there and climbing Mt Hekla. Reports on the flora and fauna of such places were written and many published. On one such visit (in 1883) to the Outer Hebrides he undertook what became an 'epic' climb on one of the sea stacks (Stack na Biorrach) and published an account in the Alpine Journal (May 1913. No 200).
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| Stack na Biorrach |
He wanted to compare the climbing abilities of the locals (who climbed to collect eggs and fowl) to that of the Alpine guides. This was soon after he had completed a spectacular season in the Alps (1882) when the Schreckhorn, Finsteraarhorn, Eggishorn, Jungfrau and Matterhorn were climbed - a total ascent of at least 84,500 feet in ten days.
Henry Swanzy was a clergyman friend and together they attended the annual meeting of the British Association in Manitoba, Canada in 1884. Afterwards they continued westwards through the Selkirk and Rocky Mountains on a gruelling journey through largely unexplored territory to reach the west coast, returning via Portland, Oregon and Chicago. Swanzy's report of the mountains traversed was an influencing factor in the later explorations of his cousin William Spottswood Green.
It was Green who was his proposer for Alpine Club membership in 1886 and in 1889 he returned to the Alps with H.C Hart, climbing the Weisshorn and Dent Blanche. This seems to have been his last Alpine season. He died in 1915 leaving his natural history collection to the Science and Art Museum, Kildare St., Dublin.
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| Biorrach Marc Calhoun |
See here for details of his life;
and In Search of Peaks, Passes and Glaciers, by Frank Nugent for more details of his Alpine career.
