Early 20th Century

 A number of Irish people were very active in Alpine regions in the early years of the 20th Century.

Valentine Ryan and William Trench Kirkpatrick  were being recognised as leading figures among Alpinists of the era.  In Ireland members of the Dublin Arts Club such as Page Dickinson were exploring the Irish hills and mountains for their mountaineering possibilities. Such figures were the ones who were making notable achievements in the sport and remain the ones that are remembered. 

Did such an activity influence the 'ordinary man in the street' ?  Were others indulging in such a leisure-time pursuit, even if at a lower level?

Since the 1880s in a repurposed gate lodge on the Powerscourt estate the McGuirk family ran a tea-shop.  This was located in the heart of the Wicklow Hills, close to Lower Lough Bray but actually in Co Dublin.  A visitor's book was kept by the McGuirks which many of their guests signed and entered comments.  Michael Fewer has analysed this in Tales from a Wicklow Tea Room and provides evidence that the facility was being used by a great many cyclists and hikers from the end of the 19th Century, into the 20th Century up to about 1960.

Hill walkers were..frequent callers at McGuirk's.  Country walking then was a pastime mainly enjoyed by middle- and upper-class people, and ramblers' clubs such as the Sléibhteágaigh and the Brotherhood of the Lug were established in the early tentieth century. (Fewer).

The 'great and the Good' of the Arts and professional classes visited Mc Guirk's on their visits to the Wicklow Hills.  As time went on the addresses listed became more and more from working-class areaas of Dublin.  According to The Irish Times (Sep 1902), ascents of Mangerton and Carrauntoohill in Kerry were common and 'great mountain and open-air tramps were a feature of Dublin life' in the first decade of the century.

The following is a list of some of the people who visited or wrote in the guest book:

J.B Malone; Fr. Willie Doyle, SJ; J Swift Joly; Fr F.M Brown SJ; Standish O'Grady; Oliver Gogarty; J.M Synge; Hugh Lane; John Healy;  William P. Hackett, SJ; Ben Kiely; Samuel Beckett.