Irish in the Himalayas

 The British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947 and the term conceals numbers of Irish people. Patrick O’Leary in his ‘Servants of the Empire, the Irish in the Punjab 1881-1921’, details the contribution made by many Irish in that region of India. 

     The influence on Indian history of Irish-born administrators and soldiers was quite remarkable. In the mid-eighteenth century, French influence ended  in a battle in which both sides were led by Irish generals (the French side included elements of the Irish Brigade). During the 1890s seven of the eight  Indian provinces were ruled by Irish pro-consuls while at about this time three Commanders-in-Chief  in    India were Irish-born and another claimed to be. Tipperary-man Michael O’Dwyer was the administrator ultimately responsible for the infamous Amritsar Massacre. The many Irish doctors in the Indian Medical Service had a profound effect on research into the treatment of tropical diseases. ( Dr. P.O'Leary)

It is likely that some of these administrators spent their leave by travelling or venturing from various parts of India into the high regions of the Himalayas as mountaineers. From the state of Himachal Pradesh (formerly part of Punjab) this certainly happened. 

Bruce. Wikipedia

R.I Bruce (from Co Cork), on leave from the NW Frontier trekked in the mid 1870s over Hampta Pass, Parang La (5,578m) and Rohtang Pass.

 Arthur Banon (from Offaly) left his regiment, the Munster Fusiliers, to settle in Kullu and his descendants were facilitators to a modern generation of Irish mountaineers.

 Louis Dane (family from Co Fermanagh), made the first crossing of the Pin Parbati Pass (5,400m).

See: To wander at will and free of charge. The Irish in Himachal Pradesh. Journal of the Irish Mountaineering and Exploration Historical Society. Vol 3. Dublin 2012 (P.O' Leary) 

Kelly. Wikipedia

Colonel James Kelly and Lieutenant Cosmo Stewert took a regiment of Punjab Pioneers over the Shandur Pass (3,700m) in 1895 in the relief of Chitral; a military operation but a feat of mountain travel.

[Keay, John. The Gilgit Game. 1979 London pp 253]. 

This whole area of the Irish in British India offers further scope for detailed investigation.

Frederica Plunket

Frederica Louisa Edith Plunket was born at Kilsaran, near Castlebellingham in County Louth (1838-1886). Her father Thomas Plunket, 2nd Baron Plunket (1792–1866), was a junior Church of Ireland clergyman and later became the Bishop of Tuam, Killala and Achonry where he gained some notoriety for his behaviour during the Great Famine era.

 Her mother Louise Jane Foster (married in 1819) was the daughter of John William Foster of Fanevalley, County Louth, Member of Parliament for Dunleer. Her eldest sister Katherine Plunket was known as Ireland's oldest person at 111 years and 327 days.

Plunket travelled Europe with her sister Katherine Plunket and they made many sketches of flowers in France, Italy, Spain and Germany, and Ireland. These were bound in a volume, Wild Flowers from Nature, which was presented in 1903 to the Royal College of Science, and was later transferred to the Museum of Science and Art in the National Museum of Ireland. In 1970 it was part of the collections which were transferred to the Irish National Botanic Gardens at Glasnevin.  (Wikipedia)

At present there is little information available about her early life and career and it is not clear what inspired her to undertake mountaineering but in 1875, with her sister, she climbed the Eiger and Mt Blanc. The following year they climbed Monte Rosa and the Strahlhorn (with guide Peter Egger).

'Here and there among the Alps' (1875) is her account of some of her climbing activities and is written to encourage other women to undertake the activity. The following is a short excerpt from the introduction:

In offering the following pages to the public, the authoress is actuated, not so much by the motive to describe her own especial excursions, as by the wish to persuade other ladies to depart more than is their usual habit from the ordinary routine of a Swiss summer tour ; to urge them no longer to pause on the threshold of the Alpine world, but to pass its snow-marked boundaries, and to see and admire for themselves those wonders of nature which many of them are content to gaze on from a distance, thus losing half their beauty.