Early Alpinists (20th C) - - Valentine Ryan -- The first 'Celtic Tiger' -- and Lionel, his brother.

Courtesy:
 Rosemary Ryan-Testa

 Among climbers a ‘tiger’ seems to denote a young, dynamic, driven character who seems to be able to climb anything he’s pointed towards, showing scant regard for tradition or the reputation of others.

Valentine John Eustace Ryan seems to have burst upon the British climbing scene in the first decade of the 20th Century in just such a fashion.  As Winthrop Young said of him ‘he climbed with an almost feverish energy and daring’.  This was in an era well past the ‘Golden Age of Mountaineering’ when no new big climbs were being done in the Alps.  Some exploration was being done on the Aiguilles and in the eastern Alps but the major figures of British climbing –Slingsby, Collie and Conway – were in the distant greater ranges.  Into this scenario : ‘a young climber suddenly ranging up and down the whole length of the Alps for several seasons each year, making only the most difficult ascents, many of them new… a standard of rock technique altogether unprecedented,’..

He was 15 years old when he made his first mountain ascents – Pizzo Lucendro and Pizzo Fibbio in the St Gothard area, probably while on holiday with his family in the summer of 1898.  Two years later he climbed Aiguille de la Za, Pic d’Artzinal, Ulrichhorn and almost summited on the Nadelhorn.  In 1901 he climbed the Dom.

In the winter of 1901/02 the family was on holiday in Switzerland, possibly for health reasons.  Val was on leave from the army.  The father, writing to his brother in County Tipperary from the Grand Hotel, Locarno, states:

‘Bob (family name for Lionel) after a few days here found the place too dull for him so he went off alone – he crossed the Simplon in deep snow on a sleigh which upset two or three times on the journey – he then did some wonderful mountain attempts in winter …he has become quite notorious for his daring feats of climbing…’

Weisshorn

The London Daily Mail reported the details: 

‘The honour of the first important Alpine ascent of 1902 has been gained by Mr Ryan, an Englishman. (sic.)  Accompanied by three guides, he left Zermatt on Friday and climbed to the summit of the Weisshorn, 14,805 ft., and returned safely today (12th).  This is the first time the Weisshorn has been ascended in winter.’

Val, also, seems to have wanted some of the action.  He and his mother went to Lausanne, where they were joined by Lionel.  The two boys (19 and 17 years old) then went to Chamonix and ‘enjoyed a week in the snow there but the bad weather drove them back to Lausanne to their mother who was waiting anxiously’.  The week in the snow (as in Val’s Alpine Club candidate’s form) involved climbing the Aig. De l’M and Petit Charmoz; Aig. du Moine, and attempts on the Charmoz and the Aig. du Plan, which was stopped high up by bad weather.  Lionel’s regiment went to India soon after that and he died there in April 1903.  This was surely a climbing career cut short.

In 1904 Val began really to get going and must have spent his whole leave in the Alps’. (Young)  The list of climbs, with Joseph and Franz Lochmatter, is impressive: (see IMEHS Journal Vol 3 for details): Rimpfischhorn; Charmoz traverse; Aig. Verte; Grèpon and Blaitière in one day; and others.   See Frank Nugent's In search of Peak, Passes and Glaciers for further details.

Geoffrey Winthrop Young, who was a contemporary, likened him in many ways to the renowned Edward Whymper.  He says, in 1949, that Whymper and Ryan  ‘… were both for a few years in youth fired into something like heroism, inspired to pursue adventurous and almost romantic achievement, by the fascination of Alpine heights and by the physical satisfaction of climbing....Because of those years of enthusiasm in his youth, because of his exceptional prowess, and of the independent courage with which he attacked new spheres of difficulty and danger, Ryan’s name lives on among the Alps… We at least can realize, … what a novel mountaineering movement was launched during those few seasons at the start of the century, and what a leading role he himself played in the launching’

Valentine Ryan left little account of his climbs. He was not much given to writing and seems to have found it tedious. Some notes he was preparing for publication were mislaid by the person to whom they were given and he never rewrote them.  Some fragments of a possible book of climbs are quoted by Young in the Climbers’ Club Journal.  What is known of Ryan’s character is gleaned from Young’s account of dealings with him and observations of him as a fellow climber.  

During the second war he was active in London as an Air Raid Warden ; and he was planning to revisit Ireland once again when he died in 1947.

 

Aconcagua and Mervyn Ryan

Aconcagua is the highest mountain in the world outside the Himalayas. It was climbed on the 5^th of February 1925 by a party that included Mervyn Frederick Ryan.

Aconcagua.  Wikipedia CC A. Backer.  

The surname Ryan is closely linked with Tipperary and is unlikely to be thought of as being associated with Alpine climbing achievements. However, Valentine Ryan was an outstanding Alpinist in the early years of the twentieth century, making numerous first ascents and is remembered by the 'Ryan-Lochmatter' route on the Aiguille du Plan. His brother, Lionel, had the first winter ascent of the Weisshorn.

Almost totally forgotten is their cousin, Mervyn, of the same family, the Ryans of Inch (near Thurles). Mervyn was born in Malta in December 1883. This came about because his parents, Thomasine (Shaw) and Major Charles Ryan, British Army, were traveling home - from a posting in India, or the Anglo/Egyptian War - when the pregnancy intervened. Some time was spent in India – his mother was the daughter of the CO of the Royal Irish Regiment there. He was educated, as was his father, at Stonyhurst College, the Jesuit school in

Lancashire, from 1898 to 1902, where he excelled academically, captained the college football eleven and was involved in cricket and athletics.

Stonyhurst football

After that he qualified as an engineer at University College Nottingham, gained experience with railways in the USA and had a varied career in railways and munitions until 1919 when he was elected as president of the Institution of Locomotive Engineers and was appointed as Chief Mechanical Engineer to the Central Argentine Railway.

 

It may have been this appointment, or possibly the accounts of his cousins' Alpine exploits, that brought the mountains to his attention, for their followed five consecutive seasons of climbing in the Andes. In 1922, after a solo climb of Cerre Penitentes (4,440m) in Argentina, he made his only visit to the Alps, went on the Gorner Glacier and climbed Monte Rosa, the Rothorn, Gabelhorn and Wellenkuppe with Pollinger as guide.

The Alpine experience may have fired his enthusiasm, for the following

Aconcagua Party

 few years saw him make unsuccessful and guideless attempts of Almacenes (4,926m), Tolosa (5,432m), and Aconcagua (6,961m). The experience gained was beneficial for in 1925, along with climbing partners, Clayton, Cochrane and Mc Donald, he reached the summits of all three, culminating on 5^th February with the ascent of Aconcagua. This is considered the fourth ascent of the mountain and the second 'completely British' ascent.

He joined the Alpine Club in 1926, proposed by Sidney Young, an English businessman in Argentina. As linguistic qualifications he listed Hindustani with Spanish and school French, an indication of time spent in India. There seems to have been no climbing afterwards but he went on in his career to survey railways in India and Thailand.

Puenta del Inca

The experience of climbing in the Andes was likely to have been significant, for at his own request, he was to be buried at Puenta del Inca, the starting point of his summit attempt on Aconcagua. For his retirement he had intended to settle down in Ireland, had bought an estate here, but his final illness prevented this and he died in Argentina in 1952.

Acknowledgements: Thanks to Desmond Ryan of Edinburgh for use of the photographs; Institution of Mechanical Engineers for the portrait; Stonyhurst College; Emma Mc Donald of the Alpine Club, London, and its archive that is so easily accessible on its website (http://www.alpine-club.org.uk);

 

Of Irish parentage

A notable number of climbers in the 20th Century had a parent or parents who were Irish.  It is not being claimed that this characterised them as Irish.  However, the influence of a parent may have been significant in their careers, climbing and otherwise.

Three such people whose contribution to mountaineering took place mainly in the 20th Century were:

Edward O Wheeler

Edward Oliver Wheeler: son of Arthur Oliver Wheeler  (born Kilkenny) and Clara Macoun, daughter of famous Canadian botanist John Macoun (born in Magheralin, Co Down).With his father climbed his first mountain at age twelve - named Mt Oliver - in Canadian Rockies. Surveyor on 1921 Everest Expedition.

 Young (Wikipedia)

 Geoffrey Winthrop Young: renowned British mountaineer was the son of Alice Eacy Kennedy, daughter a leading Dublin physician. A 'woman of splendid presence and forceful character', when she died in 1922 the Times obituary described her as one of the last grandes dames.  'The Irish connection was precious to Geoffrey. As a child he enjoyed long summer holidays at Belgard Castle, the Kennedy family home near Dublin...in the enlivening company of his Irish cousins', one of whom was Page Dickenson.

Mervyn Ryan

Mervyn Ryan: Born in Malta in 1883, son of Maj Charles Aloysius Ryan of Inch House, Thurles. Cousin to Valentine and Lionel Ryan of Thomastown, Birr, Co Offaly. Educated at Stonyhurst (1898-1902), became a railway engineer in Argentina where he had a number of mountaineering seasons in the Andes and climbed Aconcagua on 5th February 1925 (4th ascent of the mountain).

Their achievements will be examined in due course.

Another, who operated in the 19th Century was Amelia Edwards -  born on 7 June 1831 in Islington, London, to an Irish mother (of the Walpole family of Tipperary) and a father who had been a British Army officer before becoming a banker, Edwards was educated at home by her mother, (visited the Walpole family in Ireland often during her childhood) and showed early promise as a writer. 

At the time of Edwards's visit, the Dolomites were described as terra incognita and even educated persons had never heard of them. 

After her descent from the mountains, Edwards described civilized life as a "dead-level World of Commonplace". In the summer of 1873, dissatisfied by the end of their journey, Edwards and Renshawe took to a walking tour of France.[9] However, this was interrupted by torrential rains, a factor that influenced them in looking towards Egypt.[7]

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 became a friend of Page Dickenson, joined the Dublin Arts Club and climbed in North Wales with Geoffrey Winthrop Young and others.  He is mainly remembered for his sailing exploits - a round the world voyage on his yacht 'Saoirse'.

See In Search of Islands, a life of Conor O'Brien by Judith Hill

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Early 20th Century

 A number of Irish people were very active in Alpine regions in the early years of the 20th Century.

Valentine Ryan and William Trench Kirkpatrick  were being recognised as leading figures among Alpinists of the era.  In Ireland members of the Dublin Arts Club such as Page Dickinson were exploring the Irish hills and mountains for their mountaineering possibilities. Such figures were the ones who were making notable achievements in the sport and remain the ones that are remembered. 

Did such an activity influence the 'ordinary man in the street' ?  Were others indulging in such a leisure-time pursuit, even if at a lower level?

Since the 1880s in a repurposed gate lodge on the Powerscourt estate the McGuirk family ran a tea-shop.  This was located in the heart of the Wicklow Hills, close to Lower Lough Bray but actually in Co Dublin.  A visitor's book was kept by the McGuirks which many of their guests signed and entered comments.  Michael Fewer has analysed this in Tales from a Wicklow Tea Room and provides evidence that the facility was being used by a great many cyclists and hikers from the end of the 19th Century, into the 20th Century up to about 1960.

Hill walkers were..frequent callers at McGuirk's.  Country walking then was a pastime mainly enjoyed by middle- and upper-class people, and ramblers' clubs such as the Sléibhteágaigh and the Brotherhood of the Lug were established in the early twentieth century. (Fewer).

The 'great and the Good' of the Arts and professional classes visited Mc Guirk's on their visits to the Wicklow Hills.  As time went on the addresses listed became more and more from working-class areaas of Dublin.  According to The Irish Times (Sep 1902), ascents of Mangerton and Carrauntoohill in Kerry were common and 'great mountain and open-air tramps were a feature of Dublin life' in the first decade of the century.

The following is a list of some of the people who visited or wrote in the guest book:

J.B Malone; Fr. Willie Doyle, SJ; J Swift Joly; Fr F.M Brown SJ; Standish O'Grady; Oliver Gogarty; J.M Synge; Hugh Lane; John Healy;  William P. Hackett, SJ; Ben Kiely; Samuel Beckett.