The life o' Reilly

Courtesy: Alpine Club

 In the Summer of 1864, Edward Whymper, the doyen of British Alpinism during its Golden Age, was climbing in the Mont Blanc area, making a number of 'First Ascents'.  His climbing partner was Anthony Miles William Adams Reilly, who hailed from Belmont House in Ledestown, just outside Mullingar in Co Westmeath.  Together they decided to continue the season in Switzerland by climbing the Matterhorn by the Hörnli Ridge.  However, Whymper was required to return to London on urgent business so the climb was not attempted.  As he says in Scrambles amongst the Alps "... if we had not been obliged to part, the mountain would, doubtless, have been ascended in 1864."  Whymper returned to Zermatt in 1865 and by the same route he succeeded in making the first ascent of this iconic mountain.  Such are the 'might have beens' of mountaineering.

With such a surname it might be expected that Reilly had Cavan connections.  Indeed, his great-grandfather was Thomas O'Reilly of Roebuck, Co Cavan.  Over a few generations the O' was lost, the Adams was gained, along with property in Westmeath and Cavan.  Anthony was known to most as, simply, Adams Reilly.

Little is recorded of his early years in Mullingar.  He was educated in Rugby school, where he was sent, aged 12, on the death of his father in 1848 and at Brasenose College, Oxford.  There, he came under the influence of George Barnard, the Drawing Master and later a member of the Alpine Club, and probably read Travels through the Alps of Savoy (by J D Forbes).  He later acknowledged that it was Forbes' book that first aroused his interest in the Alps.

1861 was his first substantial season of Alpine climbing - with Leslie Stephen he made the second attempt on the East arête of Lyskamm, climbed Monte Rosa and Mt Blanc (twice, by different routes), all of which helped him gain membership of the Alpine Club in March 1862.  Later that year when he was back again in the Mt Blanc region he was struck by the deficiencies in the maps being used.  Not alone were the heights of peaks and extent of glaciers inaccurate but some non-existent summits and ridges were shown.  He decided to remedy the situation himself by carrying out a survey of the Mt Blanc massif himself.  He was encouraged in this by meeting with J.D. Forbes whose book had inspired his early interest in the mountains, in early 1863.  Through Forbes' persuasion he decided to undertake a thorough survey of the Mont Blanc chain the following year.

Edward Whymper saw Reilly as 'a man of wonderful determination and perseverance' who might make a suitable companion for renewed attacks on the Matterhorn.  The invitation was issued and gladly accepted by Reilly, but only on condition that  Whymper would assist with the revision survey.  Thus it transpired that they were climbing together in July of 1864 in the Mont Blanc area making a number of first ascents (Mont Dolent, Aiguille de Trélatéte, Aig d'Argentière).  The survey was completed, the map published by the Alpine Club in 1865.  He had assisted the French surveyors in their work and they subsequently named a number of mountain features near Chamonix in his honour ( Aiguille Adams-Reilly, Col Adams Reilly).

He was well liked by his climbing colleagues and locally in the Alps.  At Chamonix "almost every man, woman and child...had a pleasant smile for him and a 'bon soir' M. Reilly".  He lived for some years around 1870 in Mullingar and difficulties in Ireland troubled and affected him so that in 1881 he determined "to dwell amongst his own people" and he moved to Delgany, Co Wicklow but suffered from ill health.  He died in April 1885, the result of a stroke and is buried near Nenagh in Co Tippersary where his Alpine Club friends arranged the erection of an impressively carved Celtic cross in white marble to mark his grave.  C.E Mathews, who attended the burial, paid moving tribute to his dear friend and climbing partner - "...I never once heard him say anything to anyone's disparagement or pass an unjust judgement upon a single human being.  What wonder that there should be so many who loved him so well and who miss him so sorely?...one of the sweetest souls ever given to the sons of men; but memory of his friendship remains behind a pure, a sacred, and priceless possession".

A R's Mt Blanc map detail.   Alpine Club

From Whymper's 'Scrambles'

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See Journal of IMEHS Vol 2, 2002 for more details of Anthony Adams Reilly

at:  Here

and In search of Peaks, Passes and Glaciers, by Frank Nugent, Collins Press, 2013.

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Site Map

Ancient Times.

         Mountains in prehistory.       

Booleying.         Lúnasa.

Before 1800                          Mapping of Ireland

   Brian Merriman.                                                Thomas Colby.                         

   Edmund Burke.                                                 John O'  Donovan.

   Darby Field.     

  Buck Whaley.

 Golden Age                        People          

of Alpinism        

John Ball.                                                            A list with links

John Tyndall.

 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 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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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 

 Darby Field                                                             8 Louisa Tyndall

Tom Fitzpatrick                                                     9. Frederica Plunkett

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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William Spotswood Green

  William Spotswood Green was born 10 September 1847 in Youghal, Co. Cork,  the only son and eldest  of six children of Charles Green, JP, merchant of Youghal, and his wife Catherine Frances, daughter of Walter Fitzsimons. 

Educated at Rathmines School, Dublin (1859–61),  Midleton College (1861–7), and TCD (1867–71), he spent his childhood in the family home on the seafront in Youghal, where an obsession with boats, the sea, and fishing began.

His first written observations on natural history date from this period and include records of distribution of molluscs in Youghal Bay. 

His first climbing expedition abroad was in 1869, when, at the age of 21, he went to Switzerland with his friend J.S.Lyle.  He intended to climb Monte Rosa but his guide accidently burned the soles of his only boots.  He recorded little about this expedition except to say that 'I returned home feeling that a whole new world had opened up for me'.

The following year he was in Switzerland again with Lyle and his own cousin Henry Swanzy.  As well as doing a long walk of about 100Km they climbed Monte Rosa, Aiguille Bricola, Sparrenhorn, Finsteraarhorn and returned to Ireland on 31 of August.

After graduating in 1871 he took off to Norway's Lofoten area that was then largely unexplored and later became a popular mountaineering destination.  He had set his sights on climbing Higravstinden but seems to have made the first ascent of  a lower summit.

On Aoraki

Ordained deacon of the Church of Ireland in 1871 and to the priesthood the following year and was appointed curate of Kenmare  from where he moved to Carrigaline  in 1878.

Aoraki, or Mount Cook (3,754m) as it was then called, is the highest summit in New Zealand and this is where Green focused his attention.  Along with two Swiss guides he reached, almost, to the summit in what turned out to be an epic of survival in extreme weather conditions. in 1882.

Returning to Ireland he wrote an account of the expedition  (The High Alps of New Zealand) and lectured on it to the Royal Irish Academy (R.I.A) and the Royal Geographical Society (R.G.S).

Green's cousin and climbing partner of earlier years was a member of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and attended its convention in Western Canada.  He returned with tales of magnificent and almost untouched mountains.

In 1888 the cousins made up what was perhaps the first solely Irish expedition team to explore and map any mountain range outside of Europe.  To Green, it must have seemed as if he was upholding the standard of Ball, Tyndall and Adams-Reilly during the Golden Age of Alpinism.  (R.W Sandford).

Selkirks.

                                                                        

As part of their surveying they climbed as many summits as they could in the time available and named Mounts Dawson, Fox, Donkin, Deville, Macoun and Perley Rock.   Two peaks were later named Mount Green and Mount Swanzy.

His account of the expedition was published as 'Among the Selkirk Glaciers', was published in 1890 and was the first book written about the Canadian mountains and his description of the 'perfect alpine paradise' led many European climbers to head for the Canadian west that resulted in a burgeoning climbing fraternity in that country.

He is credited with recommending the location for a small chalet to the Canadian Pacific Railway that would grow to become the Chateau Lake Louise hotel.

Another aspect of his life was that he made a notable contribution to the Irish sea-fishing industry.

For on overview of his life see here (DIB)

Detailed accounts of his mountaineering in:

In Search of Peaks, Passes and Glaciers,  Frank Nugent (The Collins Press); and

William Spotswood Green, Paddy Leahy, Vol 4, IMEHS Journal of Mountaineering Ireland

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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