Frederica Plunket

Frederica Louisa Edith Plunket was born at Kilsaran, near Castlebellingham in County Louth (1838-1886). Her father Thomas Plunket, 2nd Baron Plunket (1792–1866), was a junior Church of Ireland clergyman and later became the Bishop of Tuam, Killala and Achonry where he gained some notoriety for his behaviour during the Great Famine era.

 Her mother Louise Jane Foster (married in 1819) was the daughter of John William Foster of Fanevalley, County Louth, Member of Parliament for Dunleer. Her eldest sister Katherine Plunket was known as Ireland's oldest person at 111 years and 327 days.

Plunket travelled Europe with her sister Katherine Plunket and they made many sketches of flowers in France, Italy, Spain and Germany, and Ireland. These were bound in a volume, Wild Flowers from Nature, which was presented in 1903 to the Royal College of Science, and was later transferred to the Museum of Science and Art in the National Museum of Ireland. In 1970 it was part of the collections which were transferred to the Irish National Botanic Gardens at Glasnevin.  (Wikipedia)

At present there is little information available about her early life and career and it is not clear what inspired her to undertake mountaineering but in 1875, with her sister, she climbed the Eiger and Mt Blanc. The following year they climbed Monte Rosa and the Strahlhorn (with guide Peter Egger).

'Here and there among the Alps' (1875) is her account of some of her climbing activities and is written to encourage other women to undertake the activity. The following is a short excerpt from the introduction:

In offering the following pages to the public, the authoress is actuated, not so much by the motive to describe her own especial excursions, as by the wish to persuade other ladies to depart more than is their usual habit from the ordinary routine of a Swiss summer tour ; to urge them no longer to pause on the threshold of the Alpine world, but to pass its snow-marked boundaries, and to see and admire for themselves those wonders of nature which many of them are content to gaze on from a distance, thus losing half their beauty.

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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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