Alpinists in Ireland

  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...'  In comparison to their Alpine exploits it is also unlikely that their mountain travels in Ireland would have warrented publication.

Nevertheless, some of the very highly renowned Irish alpinists did record some of their mountain journeys in Ireland.

John Ball had been climbing in the Alps from as early as 1840, well before the establishment of the Alpine Club.  He was appointed in 1846 as Assistant Poor Law Commissioner in Ireland and as second Poor Law Commissioner in 1849, which appointments gave him the opportunity of visiting remote parts of the country.  It was during these years that he recounts  a number of visits to various mountain regions of Cork and Kerry.  These were not so much mountaineering trips as geological trips to locate and examine  evidence of the passage of glaciers, similar to what he had done in the Alps. Notice of the former existance of small glaciers in the County of Kerry was the title of the article he subsequently wrote for the Journal of the Geological Society of Dublin (1848-50).  He reports on the signs of glaciation around Lough Doon, near Connor Pass, and he walked along the moraine that extends down to the lower Lough Beirne.  Similar features occurred around Lough Cruite,

Near Lough Cruite

near Mt Brandon, and on the NE side of Purple Mountain, where its moraine '..offers to the pedestrian the only path where his foot does not sink in the spongy masses of sphagnum..'   Local men may have accompanied him as guides but this is not recorded.

All this was taking place at least ten years before the formation of the Alpine Club, of which he was appointed as President, in 1857.

Eagle Rock
(Courtesy NLI)

John Tyndall's Hours of exercise in the Alps has a chapter on Killarney where he recounts his climb of 'Carrantual', Mangerton ('Mangerton is a stupid mountain') and Purple Mountain.  As in the Alps he used a local man as guide on such climbs and recorded that he paid 'the moderate sum of three and sixpence...' for the service.  This was in 1860 and when Con Moriarty, about forty years later, offered the same service he was being paid five shillings.  By the 1930s local guides were being paid about ten shillings. (see IMEHS Journal Vol 4).  In this chapter Tyndall gives, what appears to be, the earliest account of Rock Climbing in Ireland: 'Various bits of climbing were accomplished during my stay, and almost in every case in opposition to the guides.  The Eagle Rock for example, a truly nobel mass, and others, were climbed, amid emphatic enunciations of "impossible".  (This may in fact be Eagle's Nest)

This was not Tyndall's only sojourn in Ireland's hills.  Some four years later, (Easter 1865) he undertook a 'walking holiday' in northern Ireland with his friend Tom Hirst.  They walked from Larne to Glenarm along the coast and over the moors to Cushendall.  They used a local knowledgeable man as guide, a Mr Dixon, and went clambering over the causeway and wandering from headland to headland along the coast but no mention is made of Fair Head! Continuing to Donegal they climbed Muckish and Errigal with a local lad ' to carry our coats'.  At Slieve League ' ..John  descended one of the steepest portions to the water's edge and then ascended again at a still steeper place.  The guide dared not follow him....John emerged safely at the very highest point of the cliffs.  His wonderous feats of climbing already forms the subject of talk in the whole neighbourhood'.  (From Hirst's diary).

Sliabh Liag

(full account in Irish Mountain Log Autumn 2022 No 143).

Tyndall's climbing in Kerry and Donegal are likely to be the earliest accounts of climbing in Ireland and his book, which went to many editions, is likely to have promoted the tourist attractions of the Kerry region.

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Clubs and Organisations

 The Alpine Club, the world's first mountaineering club was founded in London in 1857.

Its first President was Irishman, John Ball and James Bryce, another Irishman,  was President from 1899 to 1901, before being appointed Ambassador to the USA.

As we have seen, many of the pioneering Irish alpinists of the 19th C had been members of the AC.  It

University Club

seems that from among those living in Ireland that the first organised 'mountaineering' event was held. James Bryce, as Under Secretary of State for Ireland, had led 'his panting subordinates up the steep side of Croagh Patrick'.  If this event is discounted it was the dinner held by the Irish AC members in the University Club on St Stephen's Green, Dublin, that might qualify.  Bryce had been the President of the Alpine Club, was an important figure in Ireland's administrative establishment and was soon to be appointed as British Ambassador to the USA and the event may have been organised by his AC colleagues to celebrate this.  However, there was no Irish club or organisation involved.

ALPINE CLUB DINNER IN DUBLIN.-The first dinner of members of the Alpine Club resident in Ireland was held at the University Club, Dublin, on January 26, 1906. The members of the latter Club having invited their fellow Alpinists' to meet the Right Hon. James Bryce, ex-President of the A. C., the following party assembled to welcome him to Ireland: H. de Fellenberg Montgomery (senior member), in the chair; Sir F. J. Cullinan, C.B.; Hon. G. Fitzgerald, Rev. W. S. Green, H. Warren, G. Scriven, R. M. Barrington, Rev. P. S. Whelan, H. Synnett, W. J. Kirkpatrick, G. B. Tunstall Moore.  (Courtesy: Alpine Club).

More about these to follow.

Early Brotherhood
 members

Brotherhood of the Lug                                                                                                                Somewhat earlier another event took place that could be regarded as the inaugeration of the first 'mountain' club.  This was the foundation of the 'Brotherhood of the Lug' that took place on the summit of Lugnaquilla (The Lug), the highest mountain in Wicklow and Leinster, on March 8th 1903.  Although not claiming to be 'mountaineers', they were prodigious walkers regularly walking distances of 35 km in the Wicklow hills.  The 'cradle' of the Lug, as they called it, was the Vale View Hotel in Avoca, where they stayed overnight before their annual ascent of Lugnaquilla.  The club continues to the present time and its hiking, trekking and climbing is no longer limited to Wicklow, as it was initially, but ventures much further afield.

See IMEHS Journal Vol 4:  Peter Quinn, Ireland's Oldest Walking Club for more detail.

United Arts Club, Dublin.  It came into existence in 1907; W. B. Yeats, George “AE” Russell, Lady Augusta Gregory -  these writers, along with Ellie Duncan, Count Casimir and Countess Constance Markievicz, founded the United Arts Club.  Despite having no obvious connection with mountaineering a number of its members were enthusiastic Rock Climbers and visited North Wales to climb with the leading British alpinists of the day.  These were such people as Conor O'Brien and Page Dickenson and others.

More about these to follow.

CHA - founded in Britain in 1891 ( by Rev. T.A. Leonard) as the Co-Operative Holiday Association.
This organisation arranged 'good value' walking holidays and established hostels in England, Scotland and Wales. with the aim of encouraging people to visit and enjoy the countryside.  In 1922, James Doyle, who had holidayed with the organisation, wanted to set up a similar association in Dublin.  On writing to the HQ in England, he was given a list of 42 names from Ireland of people who had holidayed with the group, 27 of which were in Dublin.  Following an 'ad' in the Evening Mail and after writing to some, the first meeting was held on 13 Sep 1922.  About 20 attended and the first 'Ramble' was on the 21 October 1922 when they met in Rathfarnham 'a village nestling at the foot of the Dublin Mountains'.  They continued with a programme of rambles and social events, opening a hostel in Bray that had to close in the 70s.  The 2nd WW and the lack of transport affected activities and membership but the club continues today as the Countrywide Hillwalkers Association.  See here for more details.

HF stands for Holiday Fellowship and has its origins in  Lancashire when, in 1891, the Rev T.A.
Leonard starting taking young people walking on the hills. He first formed Co-operative Holidays Association (CHA) and then in 1913 he formed the Holiday Fellowship.

Early HF hikers.

 The emphasis of the organization was on healthy outdoor exercise and temperance (long since abandoned!).   The Dublin branch of Holiday Fellowship was founded in March 1930 by a small group on the south side of Dublin, The Club grew rapidly in members, including Guinness employees and every year they went to an HF center to holiday. There were many notables in the club, like Wilfred Brambell and Dr. Sheehy Skeffington. From the early days there was a programme of rambles and hikes in the mountains of Wicklow and surroundings.                                                                                                                      The club now has  no formal link with the UK company HF Holidays,  though it occasionally holidays in one of its houses.    See here for more information.

Hostel Association:  We are An Óige, the Irish Youth Hostel Association. We were founded in 1931 and ever since it has been our mission to provide safe, affordable, comfortable accommodation and experiences to the young and young at heart. Our aim is to foster an appreciation of nature and the world around us to all, be it backpackers, school groups or families. Many of the hoistels are located in remote areas and give easy access to Ireland mountain regions.

Scouting Ireland:  Scouting Ireland has its history in two legacy Scouting organisations — the Scout Association of Ireland (SAI), formerly known as the Boy Scouts of Ireland, and the Catholic Boy Scouts of Ireland (CBSI). The former traces its roots to 1908, and the latter was founded in 1927 – both trace their legacy to Lord Baden-Powell's Scout Movement.                                                                         By 1908, the influence of Baden-Powell's Scout Movement had spread from Great Britain to Ireland. The first recorded meeting of Scouts in Ireland took place at the home of Richard P. Fortune, a Royal Naval Volunteer Reservist, at 3 Dame Street, Dublin on 15 February 1908 where four boys were enrolled in the Wolf Patrol of the 1st Dublin Troop. The earliest known Scouting event in Ireland took place in the Phoenix Park in 1908 with members of the Dublin City Boy Scouts (later Scouting Ireland S.A.I.) taking part.                                                                                                                                           In Dublin in the 1920s, two Roman Catholic priests, Fathers Tom and Ernest Farrell, followed the progress of Scouting and in  1926 the Catholic Boy Scouts of Ireland (CBSI) (Gasóga Catoilici na hÉireann) was created. CBSI would later become the largest Scout association on the island.

These organisations (other than the Alpine Club) are unlikely to consider themselves 'Mountaineering' clubs.  (It was even sugested that the AC was founded for 'gentlemen who enjoyed walking steeply uphill'! ) The CHA has designated itself a 'Rambling Club'.  However, all of them have facilitated the activity of climbing mountains among their members.

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James Bryce

 Politician, diplomat, jurist, political scientist, historian and mountaineer, James Bryce was a man of many parts. 

           

Born in a small terraced house in Arthur Street, Belfast, on 10th May 1838. He spent the first eight years of his life at his grandfather's residence on the shores of Belfast Lough.  At age eleven he climbed Trostan from Cushendall and claimed it was the birth and growth of his 'lifelong passion for mountain climbing'.   His schooling and academic career were extensive (see here for details).  He was widely honoured, receiving the order of merit (1907) and honorary degrees from thirty-one universities, and was president of the British Academy (1913–17). 

Bryce became a great mountain walker and climber, and his love of both activities was closely related to his interest in the natural world. In his early youth he spent much of his time in the mountains of Ireland and Scotland.   Bryce’s notable experiences of mountain landscape combined with a particular environmentalist sensibility and political liberalism to shape his pioneering ideas about landscape preservation. His mountaineering was important to his personal identity and to his practice as an historian. Bryce’s ideas about history were influenced by an environmentalist perspective on the world, gained through on-foot experience of it.

A slim, wiry man of medium height with a crisp purposeful walk and piercing deep-set eyes, Bryce exuded a sense of energy, liveliness, and movement; his pursuit of knowledge was incessant, his interests ranging over geology, botany, history, politics, law, and philosophy. He carried his great learning lightly and was happy with life's simple pleasures: smoking his pipe, reading, a good walk, or a brisk swim.

N Face Mt Bryce. Wikipedia

From 1862, when he spent a semester in Heidelberg University, he climbed the classics of Switzerland and Italy including Monte Rossa, Streckhorn Monte Pelmo and Marmolata. In 1866, with Leslie Stephen, he climbed in the Carpathians (Monte Csalho).  In 1872 he was in Iceland but seems not to have been impressed by the mountains there - 'in Switzerland....the difficulty is getting to the top of your peak. In Iceland it is getting to its bottom', requiring long , tedious journeys.  In 1873 he was in the Pyrenees, climbed with Henry Russell, and climbed Maladetta, Vignemale, Pic de Nethou and Canigou.  In 1876 he was the first European to climb Mount Ararat in Turkey.  In 1878 he was in Tatras in Carpathia and climbed a number of summits.  Elected to membership of the Alpine Club in 1879 and its president from 1899 to 1901 (in John Ball's footsteps).  In 1889 he was instrumental in the formation of the Cairngorm Club, the oldest and one of the largest hillwalking and climbing clubs in Scotland.

Mt Bryce. Wikipedia

As a politician, he was involved in many of the issues of the day - Irish Home Rule, education questions, trade unionism, and was regarded as 'the most accomplished man in the commons'. 1884 saw the introduction of his Access to Mountains (Scotland) Bill - to allow people to walk freely over uncultivated ground. In 1905 he became Chief Secretary for Ireland, introduced a number of commissions of enquiry. Even got himself out on the Irish hills 'leading his panting subordinates up the steep sides of Croagh Patrick or Craughan' (Douglas Freshfield).  He resigned in 1907, disappointed that his proposals had been rejected by Nationalists and took up position as British Ambassador to the USA.  He had been there earlier (1883) when he climbed Mt Rainier and visited Hawaii, ascending Mauna Loa (4,168m) and Kilauea (1,189m).  He used this opportunity to travel widely, visiting South America, Cook Islands, Australia and New Zealand.

He was the author of numerous books and articles on a variety of subjects; politics, law, history, education and travel.  Some of his climbing exploits feature in his travel writing but he published nothing that related solely to his mountaineering.

For details of his travels and climbs see:  Alpine Club Register  (Vol 3, p39) and  Frank Nugent's In search of Peaks, Passes and Glaciers for more details.

Bryce Canyon in Utah is not named in his honour, but for Ebenezer Bryce.

Mount Bryce in the Canadian Rockies was named in his honour by J Norman Collie in 1898 - the 15th highest peak in British Columbia.

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Hard Man Hart

Hart. Wikipedia

 Henry Chichester Hart (1847-1908) was born in Dublin, the son of Sir Andrew Searle Hart (Professor of Mathematics and Vice-Provost of Trinity College).  The family roots were in Donegal and he was educated at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen and Trinity College, Dublin.  During his college years he was a noted athlete, a powerful swimmer and champion walker.  At Trinity he was  awarded a moderatorship in natural and experimental science and graduated (1869) with a BA (hon.). In 1871 he was awarded a diploma in civil engineering.

From the age of 17, Hart conducted a botanical survey of Donegal (lasting until 1898), which led to his publication Flora of the County Donegal, widely regarded as his most important botanical work.  He was a friend of Richard Barrington and together they contributed to the 1898 edition of A.G. More's Cybele Hibernica.  Of all the botanical explorers whom  More enlisted in the preparation of the second edition of Cybele Hibernica, Hart was the most active, searching mountain-ranges, rivers, lakes, islands, and coasts in order to determine the distribution of rare flowering plants.

In 1875-6. he served as naturalist in the Arctic expedition under Sir George Nares on board H.M.S. Discovery.  Hart's farthest North was c. 86° 50'. He collected :flowering plants and ferns at various points, from Disco Island onward, but his most important work was done in the NE. part of Grinnell Land between 80° and 81 ° 50' N. (See Nares, 'Voyage to the Polar Sea',)

In 1883-4 he was with the Scientific Expedition to Sinai and Palestine (supported by the Royal Irish Academy ) and while there climbed a number of mountains, including Jebel Katerina (2642m).

In his own country he was an indefatigable walker and from his own experience he contributed the section on Ireland in Haskett-Smith's 'Climbing in the British Isles' (1895).  He was accepted for membership of the Alpine Club in 1889 (proposed by John Ball, seconded by F.J. Cullinan, two Irishmen), his qualifications being scientific - his publications on mountain botany.  In that same year he made, it seems, his only climbing visit to the Alps, when he ascended the Weisshorn and Dent Blanche with Barrington and guide Christian Almer.  

Earlier (1887) he had carried out some groundbreaking climbing on Skye - traversed the Inaccessible Pinnacle, and made the 1st traverse of Sgurr Mic Choinnich and ascended Sgurr Alasdair in a single day.(see Irish Mountain Log ....).

Hart Walk times. J. Lynam.(IMEHS Journal)

He is commemorated today by the 'Hart Walk'.  This originated in a wager, for fifty guineas, in 1886 between himself and Barrington - that he couldn't walk from Terenure to Lugnaquilla's summit and back again in less than 24 hours.  This is a distance, according to Hart, of 75 miles; he completed the journey in 23hours and 50 minutes and so won the wager.

The repetition of this walk has become a 'test piece' for modern-day hikers and Joss Lynam has produced a table of times achieved up to the mid 1970s. (IMEHS Journal Vol 1).

That Hart was a 'hard man' is of little doubt and is exemplified by the tale that shows his indifference to weather conditions. He and Barrington were botanising on a pouring wet day near Powerscourt in Wicklow.  They ended up, testing each other, by sitting on a submerged stone in the river, nonchalantly eating their lunches, indifferent to the conditions.

He died in 1908 and is buried at Glenalla, Donegal, amidst the wild glens and valleys where he had spent the happiest days of his life.

See Frank Nugent, In search of peaks, passes & glaciers for more detail.

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Home - what's found on site

 Site Map

Ancient Times.

         Mountains in prehistory.       

Booleying.         Lúnasa.

Before 1800                          Mapping of Ireland

   Brian Merriman.                                                Thomas Colby.                         

   Edmund Burke.                                                 John O'  Donovan.

   Darby Field.     

  Buck Whaley.

 Golden Age                        People          

of Alpinism                           19th C                      20th C            

John Ball.                                                            A list 

John Tyndall.                                                     (with links)

 Anthony Adams Reilly.

                                                 

                                                                

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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

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Beatrice Tomasson

It is not being claimed that Beatrice Tomasson was Irish since she was born in 1859 to William and Sarah Anne Tomasson, in Barnby Moor, Nottinghamshire, England.  However, at ten years old, Tomasson and her family moved to Ireland, where they lived in Gortnamona House (formerly Mount Pleasant) a property near Tullamore, County Offaly.

The diary of the High Sheriff of Kings County, now Co. Offaly, Ireland in 1868 records the arrival of the Tomasson family at Gortnamona House, Blue Ball, 5 miles south west of Tullamore.  The house is about 500 yards south of the lake at Blue Ball called Loch na Phailis. (Pallas Lake). It was built by Moris O'Connor, son of John O'Connor, last Chief of the O'Connor's, and was leased to William Tomasson.  William Tomasson knew the art of land reclamation from his experience on their lands at Grainfoot where about sixty acres on the hillsides close to the farm had been enclosed.  Here he was successful in growing crops on what had been very boggy land.

The family had some interaction with the Howard-Bury family of nearby Charleville Castle.  

It was here in Gortnamona that Beatrice spent her formative years up to age 22. In 1882 she  travelled to Potsdam, then part of Prussia, to work as a private tutor for the household of Prussian army General von Bülow.  She was proficient in a number of European languages and worked on translations of books from German to English.  How and where she received her education is unclear but likely to have been by home tuition under a tutor.

 Tomasson moved to Innsbruck in 1885 where she took up mountain climbing. From 1892, she worked as a governess for Edward Lisle Strutt, whom she accompanied on numerous expeditions to Tyrol, Ötztal, the Stubai Alps and the Karwendel range. Despite Tommason being 15 years older than Strutt the family believed they were romantically involved. Tomasson became a member of  the Austrian Alpine Club in 1893 and began to attempt major climbs in the Dolomites from 1896 onwards.

Tomasson began climbing with Michele Bettega, a mountain guide, in 1897. Together, they made the first ascents of Cima d'Alberghetto, Torre del Giubileo, Campanile della Regina Vittoria, Monte Lastei d'Agner, and Sasso delle Capre.  In 1898 she made the first ascent of the northeast face of Monte Zebrù, which was considered at the time to be the most difficult ice wall to climb in the Tyrol, as well as the first ascent of Ortler and the second ascent of the west face of Laurinswand, which was considered to be the Dolomites' most difficult rock wall. She and Luigi Rizzi were the first climbers to summit the Dent di Mesdi via the south face in 1900. In July 1901 Tomasson, Bettega and Bartolo Zagonel made the first ascent of the south face of the Marmolada, which is considered her greatest climbing achievement. The route had been considered "the longest and most difficult climb in the Alps" for more than a decade, yet Tomasson's team made the ascent in just one day.

Alpine Journal

For the duration of her mountaineering career, Tomasson worked as a governess for wealthy families in Innsbruck.

Beatrice was an 'extraordinary character, very determined', according to a statement by her relative Paul Demoge of Paris.  Her determination was in those days a completely unfeminine attribute.  Her niece Mrs Philomena Baynes (b.1928) from her husband's side of the family described her simply as 'masculine' and 'wiry'. 'Wiry' is an appropriate description of her character.  No curls, hair combed straight back into a bun, and no smile on her face, a completely un-English aunt in her wonderful country house down in Sussex, was her niece's memory of Beatrice. 'We cousins in London had a nickname for our aunt: "the old hairpin".'

 Beatrice died on the 13 February 1947 at the age of 87.

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William Spotswood Green

  William Spotswood Green was born 10 September 1847 in Youghal, Co. Cork,  the only son and eldest  of six children of Charles Green, JP, merchant of Youghal, and his wife Catherine Frances, daughter of Walter Fitzsimons. 

Educated at Rathmines School, Dublin (1859–61),  Midleton College (1861–7), and TCD (1867–71), he spent his childhood in the family home on the seafront in Youghal, where an obsession with boats, the sea, and fishing began.

His first written observations on natural history date from this period and include records of distribution of molluscs in Youghal Bay. 

His first climbing expedition abroad was in 1869, when, at the age of 21, he went to Switzerland with his friend J.S.Lyle.  He intended to climb Monte Rosa but his guide accidently burned the soles of his only boots.  He recorded little about this expedition except to say that 'I returned home feeling that a whole new world had opened up for me'.

The following year he was in Switzerland again with Lyle and his own cousin Henry Swanzy.  As well as doing a long walk of about 100Km they climbed Monte Rosa, Aiguille Bricola, Sparrenhorn, Finsteraarhorn and returned to Ireland on 31 of August.

After graduating in 1871 he took off to Norway's Lofoten area that was then largely unexplored and later became a popular mountaineering destination.  He had set his sights on climbing Higravstinden but seems to have made the first ascent of  a lower summit.

On Aoraki

Ordained deacon of the Church of Ireland in 1871 and to the priesthood the following year and was appointed curate of Kenmare  from where he moved to Carrigaline  in 1878.

Aoraki, or Mount Cook (3,754m) as it was then called, is the highest summit in New Zealand and this is where Green focused his attention.  Along with two Swiss guides he reached, almost, to the summit in what turned out to be an epic of survival in extreme weather conditions. in 1882.

Returning to Ireland he wrote an account of the expedition  (The High Alps of New Zealand) and lectured on it to the Royal Irish Academy (R.I.A) and the Royal Geographical Society (R.G.S).

In olden time the new light was carried into our own island and to the recesses of the Alps by Irish missionaries. In our own day they are resuming their post as handers-on of the torch. One of the most powerful preachers in Europe of that devotion to high mountains which has been not one of the least consolations to many for all the crowding and complexities of modern life has been Mr. John Ball. And now the first to introduce practical mountain worship in its developed form ...has been an Irish clergyman. Mr. Green succeeds St. Gall. The Alpine Club and the author may both be congratulated on the literary result of this their first missionary enterprise in the Antipodes             (D.W Freshfield in a review of Green's book in Alpine Journal)

Green's cousin and climbing partner of earlier years was a member of the British As sociation for the Advancement of Science and attended its convention in Western Canada.  He returned with tales of magnificent and almost untouched mountains.

In 1888 the cousins made up what was perhaps the first solely Irish expedition team to explore and map any mountain range outside of Europe.  To Green, it must have seemed as if he was upholding the standard of Ball, Tyndall and Adams-Reilly during the Golden Age of Alpinism.  (R.W Sandford).

Selkirks.

                                                                        

As part of their surveying they climbed as many summits as they could in the time available and named Mounts Dawson, Fox, Donkin, Deville, Macoun and Perley Rock.   Two peaks were later named Mount Green and Mount Swanzy.

His account of the expedition was published as 'Among the Selkirk Glaciers', in 1890 and was the first book written about the Canadian mountains and his description of the 'perfect alpine paradise' led many European climbers to head for the Canadian west which resulted in a burgeoning climbing fraternity in that country.

He is credited with recommending the location for a small chalet to the Canadian Pacific Railway that would grow to become the Chateau Lake Louise hotel.

Another aspect of his life was that he made a notable contribution to the Irish sea-fishing industry.

For on overview of his life see here (DIB)

Detailed accounts of his mountaineering in:

In Search of Peaks, Passes and Glaciers,  Frank Nugent (The Collins Press); and

William Spotswood Green, Paddy Leahy, Vol 4, IMEHS Journal of Mountaineering Ireland

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The Golden Age of Alpinism - Ireland's contribution

 In Search of PEAKS, PASSES & GLACIERS is Frank Nugent's account of the Irish Alpine Pioneers who made a significant contribution to Alpinism during its Golden Age and the following fifty years.

The Golden Age of Alpinism is generally agreed to have begun with Alfred Wills' ascent of the Wetterhorn in 1854 that was the beginning of a sustained period of mountain climbing in the Alps that made fashionable the idea of mountaineering as a sporting activity.  Something of an austere figure, Wills was a judge of the High Court of England and Wales; an Irish connection was that it was he who passed judgement on Oscar Wilde.

John Ball

One of Wills' close friends and climbing companions was John Ball and he  '...was a man whose work in the Alps may...be characterised as that of the chief pioneer of mountain exploration, whether in its scientific, its practical or its literary aspects'. (WAB Coolidge, Ball's Obit.)

Some background:

John Ball, born in Dublin on 20 Aug 1818, a Roman Catholic, he was descended from a Cromwellian officer (Jonathan Ball) and was the son of Nicholas Ball, a barrister, a supporter of Catholic Emancipation and Daniel O'Connell, MP for Clonmel and a judge of the Court of Common Pleas. Nicholas's eldest sister Cecilia Ball (1784–1854) was superior of the Ursuline convent in Cork; his second sister Anna Maria Ball was a noted philanthropist; and his youngest sister Mary Teresa (Frances) Ball  introduced the Loreto order to Ireland. (D I B).

A precocious youngster, his first view of the Alps was at age nine and he was smitten.  His education took him to he Jesuit college at Oscott and later to Christ's College, Cambridge, where he studied under a number of eminent scientists (Airy, Henslow, Sedgwick) but his religion prevented him taking a degree.

Peaks, Passes & Glaciers

Details of his Alpine career are recorded in many places. He visited the Alps almost every year from the mid 1840s until his death.  He made the first ascent of  Monte Pelmo.  He crossed the main Alpine chain 48 times by 32 different passes, and another 100 passes on lateral ridges.

He was chosen as first president of the Alpine Club, instituted and edited its annual Peaks, Passes and Glaciers in 1859, the forerunner of the Alpine Journal; Ball's Alpine Guides,  published in three volumes ((1863-8), became, famously,  his most influential work.

During the 'Great Famine' in Ireland he was appointed an assistant poor law commissioner (1846–7), an experience that led him to write a tract, What is to be done for Ireland? (1847). His health broke down from overwork and he resigned, but returned as second commissioner (1849–51).   An unsuccessful parliamentary candidate for Sligo borough in July 1848, he was elected liberal MP for Carlow county (1852–7), advocating church disestablishment and land reform...appointed .. under-secretary for the colonies (1855–7). He used the position to promote his scientific interests, notably the Palliser Expedition (1857) which discovered several possible rail routes across Canada.  After failing to be elected for Sligo county in April 1857, he stood for Limerick city at a by-election in February 1858, ... he was narrowly defeated... disillusioned him with politics .... to devote himself to science and travel, usually spending part of his summers in Ireland (he had a house at 85 St Stephen's Green, Dublin) and his winters in Europe or North Africa.

As Poor Law Commissioner he had an opportunity to visit many parts of this country to do some hiking. It was in about 1846, when he was visiting the Dingle Peninsula, that he noted features that were attributable to the action of glaciers.  Two years later he had an opportunity to examine the area more closely and reported signs of glaciation around Lough Doon, near Connor Pass, and that he walked along the moraine that extends down to the lower Lough Beirne.  He discussed the glacial features around Lough Cruite under Brandon Peak and the former existence of a small glacier on the NE side of Purple Mountain, where its moraine '...offers to the pedestrian the only path wherein his foot does not sink in the spongy masses of sphagnum...'  All this about ten years before the formation of the Alpine Club  [(See Journal of the Geological Society of Ireland IV for his report (1848-50)] and this shows that he undertook some mountain activities in his own country.

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Others to follow.:

John Tyndall

Anthony Adams Reilly

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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John Palliser

 John Palliser was a landlord who lived at Comragh House, just south of the Comeragh Mountains a large swathe of which was part of his property and  where he was known to have hunted and hiked. 

Taken in Rome

He was an 'adventurer' and his large extended family lived, not only on their Irish estates, but also in Dublin, London and Rome and were widely travelled in Europe. 

In 1847/8 he undertook an 11 month long hunting trip to Missouri Country in the United Sates and overwintered there with the native peoples.

However, it is his later exploits in North America that are of interest here.  This became known as the Palliser Expedition, or more formally 'The British North American Exploring Expedition' that took place from 1857-60.  Palliser's plan for the expedition was put before the Royal Geographical Society (RGS).  The RGS was interested , extended the plan and laid it before the Colonial Office of the Westminster Parliament, with a request for funding.  

It was supported by the under-secretary of state for the colonies, John Ball ( mountaineer and friend of Palliser's - more about him later), and two members were recommended by Sir Edward Sabine (born in Dublin) and Dr Edward Purcell (of Royal Naval College Greenwich, born in Cork) - Thomas W Blakiston and John W Sullivan respectively.

Purcell Range

The expedition had a number of aims but that of greatest interest here is the investigation of possible passes through the Rocky Mountains in British territory.  In the three seasons of work, the explorers had,  along with much else, traversed six passes through the southern Rockies.  Although no attempts were made to climb summits many months were spent exploring and travelling through the mountains of western Canada.

(see Mountaineering Ireland. IMEHS Journal, Vol 1, 2002;  From Comeragh to Calgary)

Although not 'mountaineering' in a modern sense the expedition left its mark on the Rocky Mountains. The expedition members were among the first Europeans to venture into these regions of the Rockies and as such they provided many topographical features with the English names they still bear (e.g. Mounts Ball, Rundle, Bourgeau and Murchison; Cascade and Grotto Mountains; Palliser and  Fairholme Ranges, Purcell Range, Palliser River and Lake, along with many others).

To John Palliser, the expedition was not only a matter of serious exploration but also a journey 'in search of adventure and heavy game'.  A niece of his wrote, many years later, 'the months he spent in the wilds... were among the happiest of his life'.

This Irishman led an expedition that had long lasting effects on the region and a distant cousin of his (A.O Wheeler) greatly influenced mountaineering in that part of North America.

Furthermore, he was not the first, nor the earliest Irishman to explore the mountain regions of North America.  Some of these were the 'Mountain Men' of the American west.

More about all these to follow.

Map detail

Expedition Map

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