Ireland and the Greater Ranges - (Early 20th C)

] Towards the end of the 19th century European mountaineers began to consider the world's Greater Ranges (Himalayas, Andes, Caucuses) as destinations for their craft.  Initial European activity in the Himalayas largely involved the British East India Company mapping the region for military and strategic reasons in the Survey of India         

Irish people, as part of the British Raj, carried out a variety of mountain activities during the second half of the century (see here) in India. 

The climbs of the British climber W.W. Graham in 1883 are often considered the first true mountaineering exploits in the Himalayas.

 An early attempt on a major peak was made by Albert F. Mummery who died in 1895 while attempting Nanga Parbat.

 Sir Martin Conway led an expedition to the Karakoram in the  Himalayas in 1892/3.  The ensuing book ( Climbing and Exploration in the Karakoram Himalaya  was illustrated by the Irish artist A. D. Mc Cormick.  He later accompanied Clinton T. Dent to Central Caucasus.

The higher of the two summits of Mount Elbrus in the Caucasus was first climbed in 1874 by a British expedition led by F. Crauford Grove.

The Survey of India, through the Great Trigonometrical Survey, first identified Mount Everest (then Peak XV) as the world's highest mountain in the 1850s, thanks to the work of Indian mathematician Radhanath Sikhdar, with final height confirmation coming from later surveys, leading to its naming in 1865 after former Surveyor General George Everest, despite local names like Chomolungma (Tibetan) and Sagarmatha (Nepali) existing. 

Interest in climbing the world's highest mountain culminated, in 1921, with the British Reconnaisance Expedition.

Bury (top) Wheeler (below)

This expedition was led by Charles Kenneth Howard-Bury from Mullingar, Ireland.

Also on this expedition was Edward Oliver Wheeler, a Canadian, whose father was born in Kilkenny, Ireland an whose mother (Clara) was the daughter of John Macoun, born in Maheralin, Co Down.

The subsequant 1924 Everest attempt saw the disapearance of George Mallory and Sandy Irvine during their summit attempt, which was witnessed by Richard Hingston, the medical officer of the expedition. Born in London, from about age eight spent most of his life and was educated in Cork.               See Jim Murphy's 'Passage to Everest & Beyond'  for greater details and Vol 5 of IMEHS Journal.

In 1925 the 4th ascent of Aconcagua, the highest mountain outside the Himalayas, was achieved by

Mervyn Ryan,

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John Tyndall.                                                     (with links)

 Anthony Adams Reilly.

                                                 

                                                                

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Mapping of Ireland

Recorded mountains
 to 1700

 The mountains of Ireland appeared and were named on maps of the island as early as 1572.

John de Courcy has detailed the summits that appear on maps up to 1700.

(see Mountaineering Ireland. IMEHS Journal, Vol 2, 2005)

Charles Vallencey produced a military survey
of parts of the island around 1780.

Various land owners produced estate maps of their property and it was William Edgeworth, who had been involved in the Bogs Commission survey, that produced a trigonometrical survey of Co Longford and part of Roscommon. With him, 'native Irish cartography attained a new high level'.  Alexander Nimmo, for the same survey, produced a comprehensive map of the Kerry region in 1811.

                    

                                                      

See Finnian O Cionnaith Land Surveying in Ireland 1690-1830  for details of earlier surveyors.

      

In 1824 the six-inch Ordnance Survey mapping of Ireland was begun under Thomas Colby. As a consequence the surveyors were the first group to systematically get to all the significant mountain summits on the island. 

Principal triangulation
with dates.

 There is hardly a prominent peak that does not bear evidence of this in the ubiquitous 'trig pillars' that are familiar to hikers and are the result of 'retriangulation' carried out in the 1950s and '60s. 

Ireland was the first country to be completely mapped at a scale of  6 inches to a mile.

Much discussion  took place as to the merits of contour lines or hachuring to represent altitude and slope and it was not until about 1890 that the complete hill edition was produced.

A full account of the operation and proceedings of the OS in 19th Century Ireland is given by 

JH Andrews in  A Paper Landscape.

Thomas Colby was the director of the OS in Ireland  and John O' Donovan played 

John O'Donovan

an important role in the toponymical aspects of the survey.  'The OS made a crucial contribution to scholarship. Its work on antiquities, the Irish language and literature was of immense importance because it studied...sources (many for the first time) using the new scientific methodologies of contemporary European scholarship.'  G.M Doherty The Irish Ordnance Survey

Of course, the surveyors climbed the mountains for professional reasons rather than for recreation.  However, their activities may have had an influence on a generation of people that became interested in the activity of surveying, some of whom carried this interest abroad to Europe and North America and carried out surveys of their own in these places.  Among such people were John Palliser, Anthony Adams Reilly, Edward Oliver Wheeler and there will be more about these to follow.

A fascinating 'biography of the Ordnance Survey' is Map of a Nation by Rachel Hewitt (Granta, 2010)

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