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

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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                                                         Mary Burtchell

 Charles Barrington                                         Susan Gavan Duffy

 Richard Barrington                                         Elizabeth Hawkins-Whithed

 James Bryce                                                    Elizabeth Le Blond

 Edmund Burke                                                Mrs Main

 Arthur David Mc Cormick                             Mary Tighe

 Richard Cotter                                                Beatrice Tomasson  

Frederick Fitzjames Cullinan                          Louisa Tyndall

Maxwell Cormac Cullinan                             Frederica Plunkett                                                    

                                               

 Darby Field                                                                                                                        

Tom Fitzpatrick  

Robert Fowler                                                         

Robert James Graves

William Spottswood Green

Ewart Grogan

 Henry Chichester Hart

Brian Merriman

Conor OBrien

John Palliser

Richard Pococke

Anthony Adams Reilly

Henry Russell

Henry Swanzy

John Tyndall

Buck Whaley

Arthur Oliver Wheeler

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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.