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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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 bog survey, that produced a trigonometrical survey of Co Longford and part of Roscommon. With him, 'native Irish cartography attained a new high level'.       

In 1824 the six-inch Ordnance Survey mapping of Ireland was begun. 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. 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.

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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Climbing for Pleasure in Ireland

 Poets such as Brian Merriman or Mary Tighe may have mentioned their enjoyment of Irish mountains in their writing but it seems that the earliest account of climbing or hiking in the Irish mountains was published in 1849. 

A Waterford man, a member of the prominent Mackesy family, wrote about 'The Comeragh Mountains, their lakes and legends'.   This was an account of a multi-day hike/climb in the Comeraghs in which he describes his route, the terrain and the various lakes and the coums (cwms) and the folklore and legends attached to them.

A brief extract gives a flavour of the account:

Coumshingaun - Winter

We have reached the foot of the mountain under Coumshingaun ; high above, you see a dark, circular, hollow - that is our goal - the Coum, in which lies the lake, and it seems to you much nearer now than you will find it to be in reality. 

Let us ascend. Aye, it is very steep, and the day is bright and hot ; but take it quietly—you have only a two-mile walk before you. For a part of the way the grass is pleasant, and we can go straight onwards. But ever as we climb, the heath and ling become tougher and taller, the grass thinner, the stones more numerous, the dried-up channels of the winter floods more deep and frequent ; so that we can no longer hold a direct course, but must deviate into many a zig-zag; and still, as we surmount each swelling knoll, the dark Coum above seems to recede, and the way to lengthen before us. 

Now the ground shelves downwards ; we descend amid coarse herbage, heath, and stones, and now we are in the actual Coum, this deep, stern, and solitary hollow! and there lies the lake, that dark, oval tarn, embosomed in cliffs; but such cliffs! so steep, so gigantic, so magnificent—could we ever attempt to describe them!.......

Mahon Falls

But though Crotty might have had his out-offices here for his live stock, yet for his own proper residence he honoured with his preference a cavern near a lake, called after him," Crotty's Lake," about a mile north from this place. ......

And now the summary of what we have seen is, that of all the lakes and hollows, Coumshingaun is the grandest, Coumfea the mildest, Stillogue More the loveliest, Coumgorra the most savage. The mountains are seen to most advantage when the heath is in full bloom, and after a continuance of dry weather: late in the year they look bare, sombre, and dreary; and after rain the deep moss is so soaked, that you feel as if treading on supersaturated sponges; besides, the frequent mists, the treacherous bogs, and suddenly-swelling torrents, render the excursion dangerous after the commencement of autumn.

Crotty's Lake

 But if advantage be taken of bright, warm days, late in August, or early in September, no real lover of nature will return disappointed from a ramble in the Commeragh Mountains.

Iska Solas

A number of things are to be noted in the account; 

first of all the date of publication - 1849;

and also the writer is addressing an audience  of like minded people who apparently are accustomed to such activity.

(Of course the images were not part of the original article).

Mary Burtchaell, a resident of Graiguenamanagh, kept a diary in which she recorded a number of walks and hikes including, on two occasions, a climb of Brandon Hill. (16th Aug 1845 & 9th Sep 1850.)  Even if this is of no great mountaineering significance it does indicate that such people were enjoying these activities at this time. (NLI Ms 7800-11).

John Palliser, a landlord whose property included large swathes of the Comeragh Mountains is known to have hunted and hiked in those hills and he plays a greater role in this story - more to follow.

Are there similar accounts of such activities from other parts of the country?

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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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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