Edmund Burke

 The prevailing attitude to mountains up to the late 18th C, even if they were regarded as sacred sites, was one of fear and awe.  They were the source of bad weather, one didn't venture into them lightly and according to a Swiss scientist 'they were the abode of dragons'.

Joseph Jacob Scheuchzer carried out extensive studies on the mountain environment.  His work on glaciology may have led to future exploration of mountain regions. His Proof of the Existence of Dragons may have expressed the generally held view of the era.  On the 'Grand Tour', if mountains were to be traversed, the curtains were drawn on the carriage windows lest the scenes were too dramatic.

Edmund Burke was an 18th C Irish author, political theorist, philosopher and Whig politician in the Westminster Parliament.  He was not the first  to discuss the concept of the 'sublime'.  Before him most writers on the subject "agreed that pleasant feeling of awe, delight, and admiration were the result of contemplating mountain ranges ..."  In his   A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful he developed, uniquely, a physiological theory of beauty and sublimity and was the first to explain the concepts in terms of the process of perception and its effect upon the perceiver. 

His ideas on this can be seen to have influenced many of the poets and painters of the Romantic Era leading up to the early years of the 19th C.  In England the key figures of the romantic movement are considered to include the poets Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Byron and Shelley and artists such as Constable and Turner and the works of such people had a significant influence in the change of attitude towards nature, wilderness and the mountain environment.

Mary Tighe

An almost forgotten Irish poetess was Mary Tighe (1772-1810).  Her writing is said to have influenced Keats, Byron and Shelley and the Irish lyricist Thomas Moore among others.  A number of her poems extolled the beauties of the mountains, woods and lakes around Killarney after her visit there in about 1800.

Robert James Graves (1796-1853) was a Dublin surgeon, who travelled widely in Europe and on one visit in the Swiss Alps, Graves became acquainted with the painter JMW Turner. They travelled and sketched together for several months, eventually parting company in Rome.

In general it would have been the wealthy middle and upper classes that would have been familiar with the works of such poets and artists and as much as the appreciation of poetry and art was part of a good education so, also, had become the appreciation of landscape.  All of these may have become the motivation for the phenomenon that become known as the 'Grand Tour'.

By Mary Tighe

Go to     Home  for full site map

Early mountaineering in Ireland

 'Although Irish mountaineers were prominent in the early development of Alpine climbing, mountaineering in Ireland did not take a firm root until recently. (mid 20th C)

    The Irish Alpinists did not neglect their homeland hills, but they treated them principally as practice grounds for the Alps, and their attentions did not give rise to a vigorous school of local climbers as was the case in Great Britain...'

This statement by Pyat & Robson (IMC Journal Vol 1) is accurate but only up to a point.  It fails to mention the people on the island, not Alpinists or mountaineers in a strict sense, who nevertheless were 'hillwalking' and climbing Irish hills during the 19th C.  It also ignores the clubs and organisations that encouraged 'rambling' and 'hiking' in the outdoors without claiming to be 'mountaineering' clubs.

Here, I'll look at the written evidence of people who were hillwalking and climbing during the 19th Century.  Further on I'll look at the clubs and organisations that seemed to encourage such activities among their members.

Poets and writers mentioned their enjoyment of mountains and mountain scenery (Brian Merriman, Mary Tighe) but the earliest written record of a specific climb seems to have been written by Caesar Otway after his visit to Donegal in 1822 when he climbed Muckish.  The account was published in 1839 in his book 'Sketches in Ireland''. (see below)

Muckish

Muckish

Mary Burtchell was a resident of Graiguenamanagh, Co Kilkenny and records in a diary entry for 16th Aug 1845 that she climbed the nearby Brandon Hill.  No great feat of mountaineering, it does indicate her interest in venturing into relatively wild upland terrain and she went, again, to the higheset point in Co Kilkenny on 9th Sep 1850.  She gives no further information on her trips.

Brandon Hill

In 1849, a Waterford man, ( a member of the Mackesy family) wrote a detailed account of a two-day venture into the Comeragh Mountains in which he gives a detailed account of his journey with a description of the terrain and many of the lakes and cooms --

        Let us ascend. Aye, it is very steep, and the day is bright and hot ; but take it quietly—you have        only a two-mile walk before you. For a part of the way the grass is pleasant, and we can go straight onwards. But ever as we climb, the heath and ling become tougher and taller, the grass thinner, the stones more numerous, the dried-up channels of the winter floods more deep and  frequent ; so that we can no longer hold a direct course, but must deviate into many a zig-zag;  and still, as we surmount each swelling knoll, the dark Coum above seems to recede, and the way  to lengthen before us.  (Dublin University Magazine 1849).

(for full account see IMEHS Journal Vol 5; forthcoming)

There were other residents who made significant expeditions to Greater Ranges abroad but don't seem to have recorded any such activity in their homeland.  John Palliser is likely to have hiked in the Comeraghs and William Spotswood Green in the Kerry mountains.

Of course, some of the very fanous Irish Alpinists undertook some climbing at home and this will be looked at soon.

Caesar Otway's climb of Muckish:

But the lofty cloud- compelling Muckish was near Ards, and on this pig's back I was determined to mount-there will be no limits to vision from it; I shall see all Donegal, and Innishowen, and Tyrone; I shall see Derry, the brave devoted city, the joy of the whole Protestant world, under my feet; I shall see the fine land-locked Lough Swilly, the deep indented waters of Mulroy. In short, I shall see what I have ever had a passion for seeing, a wide and outstretched view, from a mountain.

 So, in spite of the fervours of a July day, and joined in the daring enterprise by some of the younger part of the family at Ards, we set forth to climb the mountain, and here it was literally climbing. There are some lofty mountains you can ride to the top of. To the craggy height of Snowdon, Welsh tourists, as I am informed, ascend in carriages; but rest assured this facility was not possible to us; for actually in many places we had to catch hold of the heath and and rock to help us in the ascent; and so steep and downright was the mountain, that a stone of any size could be hurled from the top to the bottom. Thus amusing ourselves rolling down  the compact silicious rock, and observing the noise, velocity, smoke, and flashes of fire that were elicited in the momentum of the descent, at last, after near four hours' exertion, we arrived at the summit of our ambition.

 I ran, covered with perspiration and panting with heat, to mount the topmost ridge; and just as we arrived there, just as we had cast our eyes around, and began to feast on the immense vision of earth and ocean beneath us, a vast murky cloud from the Atlantic, big with sleet and moisture, enveloped us as well as the whole top of the mountain as with a night-cap, and made every thing so dark, indistinct, and dreary, that we could scarcely see one another : besides, it was attended with such a cold, cutting breeze, that we, who were all with pores open under the process of perspiration, felt as if the Cacodemon of the mountain, in revenge for his invaded solitari- ness, had risen in anger, and armed with a scythe, had rushed on to cut us asunder-to retreat, there- fore, was the best policy. ......

 But I, whose curiosity was more intense than that of my friends, in spite of a cold and driving sleet, and fearless of a fever, still lingered behind, and hastily observed that on the top of this lofty mountain, which at a distance appears so acute and linear in its ridge, there was a plain of some acres, on which grew in luxuriance that species of saxifrage, so great an ornament to our gardens, called London pride. I also took time to observe, that on the north-western side of the elevation where it stands exposed to the driving sleet and tempest, and saline spray of the great Atlantic, even the white quartz rock is decomposed, and has been con- verted by the agency of the elements into beds of minute sand, as white as the driven snow-this the proprietor of the mountain rolls down the side of the hill in canvas bags, and exports to Dumbarton in Scotland

Go to  Home  for full site map

Climbing for Pleasure in Ireland

 Poets such as Brian Merriman or Mary Tighe may have mentioned their enjoyment of Irish mountains in their writing but it seems that the earliest account of climbing or hiking in the Irish mountains was published in 1849. 

A Waterford man, a member of the prominent Mackesy family, wrote about 'The Comeragh Mountains, their lakes and legends'.   This was an account of a multi-day hike/climb in the Comeraghs in which he describes his route, the terrain and the various lakes and the coums (cwms) and the folklore and legends attached to them.

A brief extract gives a flavour of the account:

Coumshingaun - Winter

We have reached the foot of the mountain under Coumshingaun ; high above, you see a dark, circular, hollow - that is our goal - the Coum, in which lies the lake, and it seems to you much nearer now than you will find it to be in reality. 

Let us ascend. Aye, it is very steep, and the day is bright and hot ; but take it quietly—you have only a two-mile walk before you. For a part of the way the grass is pleasant, and we can go straight onwards. But ever as we climb, the heath and ling become tougher and taller, the grass thinner, the stones more numerous, the dried-up channels of the winter floods more deep and frequent ; so that we can no longer hold a direct course, but must deviate into many a zig-zag; and still, as we surmount each swelling knoll, the dark Coum above seems to recede, and the way to lengthen before us. 

Now the ground shelves downwards ; we descend amid coarse herbage, heath, and stones, and now we are in the actual Coum, this deep, stern, and solitary hollow! and there lies the lake, that dark, oval tarn, embosomed in cliffs; but such cliffs! so steep, so gigantic, so magnificent—could we ever attempt to describe them!.......

Mahon Falls

But though Crotty might have had his out-offices here for his live stock, yet for his own proper residence he honoured with his preference a cavern near a lake, called after him," Crotty's Lake," about a mile north from this place. ......

And now the summary of what we have seen is, that of all the lakes and hollows, Coumshingaun is the grandest, Coumfea the mildest, Stillogue More the loveliest, Coumgorra the most savage. The mountains are seen to most advantage when the heath is in full bloom, and after a continuance of dry weather: late in the year they look bare, sombre, and dreary; and after rain the deep moss is so soaked, that you feel as if treading on supersaturated sponges; besides, the frequent mists, the treacherous bogs, and suddenly-swelling torrents, render the excursion dangerous after the commencement of autumn.

Crotty's Lake

 But if advantage be taken of bright, warm days, late in August, or early in September, no real lover of nature will return disappointed from a ramble in the Commeragh Mountains.

Iska Solas

A number of things are to be noted in the account; 

first of all the date of publication - 1849;

and also the writer is addressing an audience  of like minded people who apparently are accustomed to such activity.

(Of course the images were not part of the original article).

Mary Burtchaell, a resident of Graiguenamanagh, kept a diary in which she recorded a number of walks and hikes including, on two occasions, a climb of Brandon Hill. (16th Aug 1845 & 9th Sep 1850.)  Even if this is of no great mountaineering significance it does indicate that such people were enjoying these activities at this time. (NLI Ms 7800-11).

John Palliser, a landlord whose property included large swathes of the Comeragh Mountains is known to have hunted and hiked in those hills and he plays a greater role in this story - more to follow.

Are there similar accounts of such activities from other parts of the country?

                                    Go to     Home  for full site map

People involved (a list with links)

The following are some of the people involved with mountains, mainly during the 19th Century.  There will be further additions to the list in due course.

 John Ball                                                                1 Mary Burtchell

 Charles Barrington                                                 2 Susan Gavan Duffy

 Richard Barrington                                                 3 Elizabeth Hawkins-Whithed

 James Bryce                                                           4 Elizabeth Le Blond

 Edmund Burke                                                       5 Mrs Main

 Arthur David Mc Cormick                                      6 Mary Tighe

 Richard Cotter                                                         7 Beatrice Tomasson  

Frederick Fitzjames Cullinan                                     8 Louisa Tyndall

Maxwell Cormac Cullinan                                         9. Frederica Plunkett                                                  

 Darby Field                                                                                                                        

Tom Fitzpatrick  

Robert Fowler                                                         

Robert James Graves

William Spottswood Green

Ewart Grogan

 Henry Chichester Hart

Brian Merriman

John Palliser

Richard Pococke

Anthony Adams Reilly

Henry Russell

Henry Swanzy

John Tyndall

Buck Whaley

Arthur Oliver Wheeler

Go to    Home   for full site map