Early rock climbers (20th C) - Conor O'Brien - a climbing sailor

 Conor O'Brien was the son of Edward O'Brien of Cahirmoyle, Co Limerick, and his second wife (Julia Mary Marshall, whose substantial wealth was based in Yorkshire and Lancashire).  Conor grew up in South Kensington, was educated in England (Winchester 1894 -99, Trinity College, Oxford 1899-1903),  frequently visited his relatives in Ireland as well as visiting the Swiss and Italian Alps. 

 After qualifying as an architect he worked for the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society (IAOS), designing creameries in the Limerick area and worked on the design of churches and private houses.

In 1907, the United Arts Club was established by luminaries including W.B. Yeats, George ‘AE’ Russell, and Augusta Gregory.  OBrien was among the founding members.  Another member was Page Dickenson, with whom he became a close friend.  Their friendship may have been based on their shared enthusiasm for mountain climbing, for in the years 1909, 10 and 11 weekends and holidays were spent climbing the mountains of Ireland with a group from the Arts Club. 

 Dickenson had been climbing at Pen-Y-Pass in Wales since the first of Winthrop Young's  climbing weekends there in 1903.  Frank Sparrow,  another Arts Club member, had been also climbing there since 1907.  Easter 1911 was OBrien's first Pen-y-Pass sojourn and afterwards, on occasion, he sailed to North Wales  to join the climbing group in his own yacht.  On these weekends he climbed with such notables as Geoffrey Winthrop Young and George Mallory (of Everest) and both were invited to sail with him to Ireland's south west coast to explore Mt Brandon in Kerry for its climbing possibilities, which they did but found that the Old Red Sanstone of the region was unimpressive for climbing.

Robert Graves (poet, novelist), who had also climbed in North Wales wrote of OBrien:  "..we did real precipice climbing and I had the luck to climb with George (Mallory)...Kitty O'Brien and Conor O'Brien, her brother...He would get very excited when any hitch occurred; ...Kitty used to chide him 'Ach Conor dear, have a bit of wit!'...he used to climb in bare feet."

(Kitty seems to be totally forgotten as an early woman climber)

As a sailer his great achievement was his round the world journey, to circumnavigate in a small personal craft, west to east, and soutth of the three great capes.  One of his objectives in this was to climb Aoraki (Mt Cook), which was not achieved, but he climbed South Africa's Table Mountain.

After two years he returned to Ireland, became a successful author, publishing numerous books and articles.  He died in 1952 and is buried at Loghill Church in Co Limerick.

Further details see:

In Search of Islands. A life of Conor O'Brien.  Judith Hill. Collins Press

Conor OBrien. Sailor Extraordinaire.  Vincent Murphy.  Flag Lane Publishers.

Early rock climbers (20th C) - Page L Dickinson

Early members - United Arts Club
Courtesy United Arts Club
Dickinson indicated
Cartoon - B Elvery

 Some climbing had been carried out on an intermittant basis during the 19th Century by visiting Alpinists such as John Tyndall.  It seems that no regular climbing had been undertaken until the early years of the 20th Century.  The main practitioners were members of the Dublin (United) Arts Club of which, if they were not among the founders, were very early members.  Page Dickinson, Conor O'Brien, Frank Sparrow, Edward Evans, E.L. Julian were the main group members.   The inspiration for their undertaking such an unusual activity as rock climbing is not clear.  However, Page Dickinson was a cousin of Geoffrey Winthrop Young and this may have a bearing on the matter.  By the early years of the century Young was already making his name as an Alpinist and climber, visiting Skye, the Lake District, North Wales and the Alps. In 1903 the weather was too bad for his usual Alpine season, so he went instead to Ireland, visiting cousins and to go cycling, walking and climbing in Donegal.  There is no evidence that Dickinson accompanied him. 

When Young returned to England that year he went with a group of friends to Snowdonia, to Pen-y-Pass, did some climbing and partying at what was to become the first of a tradition of annual 'get togethers' of British climbers in North Wales 'that continued for some thirty years under Geoffrey's benign direction''  One of those who attended was Page Dickinson and it is very likely that it was he who encouraged other members of the Arts Club to take up the activity.  As he said:  During the last three or four summers, (i.e as early as 1904): a small group of us living in Dublin have, inspired by Easter and 'Xmas spent in Wales and Cumberland, been exploring the Wicklow mountains, with a view to ascertaining what we could find in the way of rock climbing.'  [Climbers Club Journal - Vol XI. Sep 1908. No 41].

They discovered '..a remarkably fine looking crag..' at Lough Tay. 

Lough Tay.  Wikipedia

This was the crag at Luggala and he tells how he and three friends (Sparrow, Evans and Earp) spent  six hours on the rope in the first ascent of what he named the 'Black Route'.  Frank Sparrow, Edward Evans along with Conor O'Brien were also some of the people who attended the Pen-y-Pass 'parties' under the direction of Winthrop Young and their stories will be recounted in more detail in future posts. Earp was an English motor enthusiast and does not seem to have climbed again in Ireland. 

Dickinson was an architect and is primarily remembered as an architectural historian and journalist

Cappoquin House

 but could also be counted as one of the earliest  regular rock climbers in Ireland.  He was also an artist and exhibited at the Water Colour Society in Dublin in 1906 and 1908, the  Irish International Exhibition in Dublin in 1907, the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin in 1907 and 1913, and at the annual exhibitions of the Architectural Association of Ireland in 1908 and 1910.  Having left Haileybury School (Hertfordshire) he spent 'a year or so abroad', was then apprenticed to the architect Richard Caulfield Orpen in 1900, whom he later joined in partnership and worked on projects in Spain and Italy and on many country houses in Ireland. 

Dickenson's letter
re renovation of Cappoquin House.
Irish Aesthete

In 1915 he enlisted as a member of Dublin University Officer Training Corps and became a captain in the Mechanical Transport division; early in his service he suffered shell shock.  After the war, he found himself among 'those who…had to leave their native country owing to the acts of their fellow-countrymen'.  Towards the end of his life he returned to Ireland to live and died in Kilmacanogue, Co. Wicklow, Ireland on 1 October 1958.

See DIA for further biographical details.