An old farmer once told me that mountains are just land that’s a bit up in the air. In Ireland, we certainly have a considerable amount of terrain that is “a bit up in the air” but not really that far up. You see, it is possible in favourable weather for those of us who are moderately fit to reach any Irish mountaintop in a day’s hike. All we have to do is select the least challenging route and then do nothing more technical than putting one foot in front of the other. In truth, there is something about unchallenging uplands that draws us to them and makes us want to reach the highest point. I remember feeling this urge in spades when I first gazed upon the mistily seductive slopes of the Galtee Mountains from my home in Co. Tipperary. No doubt this most human of desires has been common to up-gazing people throughout history.
Attainable heights
We can safely assume, therefore, that the Irish uplands have been accessed since the dawn of human history and, it is small wonder then, that these highlands did not become distant objects of reverence and fear. This was the case with the forbidding tops of some of the world’s great mountains, such as the Matterhorn, K2 and Everest. Unknown and untrodden, these peaks were feared by the surrounding communities as the abode of monsters and evil deities. In contrast, the vertically unassuming Irish mountains were known and oft-visited, and so they became a reassuring and accessible aspect of the landscape. Soon they were being purposefully woven into legend, for a salient peak above us is a universal presence that all of us relate to. Its constant, comforting reality builds local identity and nurtures the enabling mythologies that are necessary for us to create strong bonds within our communities.
Natural bastions against violence and oppression
People have mostly had recourse to the uplands in times of change, challenge or combat. Ireland’s turbulent history has ensured that almost all the defining eras of Ireland’s past have been represented by events in the high country. The world-famous Burren of County Clare comes replete with the fascinating stone forts built in high places for the protection of their families and livestock by early farmers. Ulster held out longest as the last bastion of Gaelic Ireland because it was defended by a necklace of mountains and bogs to the south of the province. After the failure of the 1798 Rising, it was in the Wicklow Mountains that the most defiant rebels found sanctuary. The challenge of a rapidly growing population in pre-Famine Ireland forced many families into the uplands to seek additional land on which to eke out a precarious existence. The remains of the lazy beds in which they grew potatoes are to this day a common sight in the Irish hill country.
It was in mountainous areas of counties Tipperary and Cork that opposition to British rule in Ireland was most veracious during the War of Independence, while at the end of the Irish Civil War the final redoubts of Republicanism were to be found within upland communities from Sligo to Waterford and Kerry to Armagh. So, let us now set out together on a journey that follows the ebb and flow of times gone by as enacted in the high country.
We will find it was the land clearing efforts of Stone Age farmers that were partially responsible for creating the Burren. Early writers wishing to build the mythology of St Patrick were, we will discover, careful to continually link Ireland’s national apostle to the spiritual dominance of lofty places. One result was an early Christian pilgrimage to Croagh Patrick’s summit that flourishes to this day. In West Kerry, the highest mountain on the Dingle Peninsula was, after his death, dedicated by mythology to Saint Brendan. When a couple of Ulster princes escaped from Dublin Castle, they didn’t make a beeline northeast across the flat, but exposed, Central Plain of Ireland towards home. Instead, they headed south to the relative security of the Wicklow Mountains. This was the nearest place to Dublin where the English writ did not run, for it was a general rule of the time that Queen Elizabeth experienced the most profound difficulties when trying to impose her will on Ireland’s upland areas.
Outlaws in the uplands
Outlaws and rapparees in the 18th Century used an intimate knowledge of these same uplands to stay a step ahead of the English rulers and thereby built a cache of support among ordinary people. Young Irelander and Fenian revolutionaries employed the great symbolism of mountaintop mass meetings to mobilise the populace against perceived oppression, while Cistercian monks sought the opposite: a return to contemplative solitude on the silent slopes of the Knockmealdown Mountains.
After the Soloheadbeg Ambush of 1919 resulted in the death of two police constables, the initial impulse of volunteers Séamus Robinson, Seán Treacy and Dan Breen was to seek sanctuary among the snowladen slopes of the Galtee Mountains. Later, Breen found refuge in a small cave in the same mountains. Similarly, it was to the embrace of upland communities that rebel fighters Tom Barry and Liam Lynch retreated when the lowlands became untenable for their cause.
Hikes in the 20th century
Things are, of course, never just normal in Ireland, it’s not the way we do things: instead, our nation is invariably either in the grip of a boom or a bust. Whatever the economic conditions however, the number of hillwalkers continued to grow rapidly as Ireland urbanized and industrialized in the second half of the 20th Century. The reason for the uninterrupted growth may be that in a recession there is more time available to enjoy the outdoors and also more need for escape, while in good times additional people can afford the cost of trips away to the hills.
It was certainly true that by the time I tiptoed into hillwalking in the late 20th Century, the Irish hill country had morphed from a place of refuge and conflict to a playground for ramblers and climbers. Pilgrims were also taking again to the ancient pilgrim paths as part of both an outer and inner journey while rock-climbers were discovering new features and routes that were previously unknown. Later, we all marvelled at a Californian wonder boy of Irish ancestry. On his frequent Irish visits, he defied death on a daily basis while stylishly pushing back the frontiers of the possible as he scaled Ireland’s most vertical mountain and coastal crags.
All this meant that safety in the uplands became a new concern for the hordes of Irish people and overseas visitors participating in outdoor recreation. Descending from the summit of Carrauntoohil almost 25 years ago, I had my first encounter with a mountain accident. From the unforgiving heights of Primroses Ridge came the successive 3 blasts of a whistle that indicated someone was in trouble. We made our way up beneath the ridge and there shouted to one of two climbers who had been hit by a rockfall; the other climber was unconscious.
The Kerry Mountain Rescue Team
This was clearly a job for a rescue team and, surprisingly for those times, a couple of our party possessed mobile phones that actually worked. Within an hour Kerry Mountain Rescue Team were on the scene and soon after, two of their members had calmly ascended to a point just beneath the climbers. From here, they guided in a helicopter that winched the climbers to safety and a full recovery in hospital. This constituted the first ever successful airlift from the Northeast face of Carrrauntoohil.
It left me with a lasting admiration for a team of volunteers that, from humble beginnings based upon tragedies in the 1960s, became a sophisticated and highly trained search and rescue organization. Over the years members of Kerry Mountain Rescue Team have dedicated themselves to ensuring that the timeless tradition of accessing the magnificent Southwest uplands continues in the safest possible manner. As this area became a Mecca for outdoor pursuits, the sometimes-epic efforts of these volunteers to save lives among the country’s highest peaks makes for yet another fascinating saga.
It shouldn’t, therefore, come as a surprise that each era from Ireland’s story has been reflected by happenings in the hill country. Over 30 years of walking through the uplands I have heard many first-hand accounts of these events from local people and on occasion been regaled with the poignant songs of loss and emigration that come down to us from the hill country.
The universal truism I have gleaned from these accounts is that upland people form a particularly strong attachment to their own place – they may leave it but it rarely leaves them. The other truism is that those holding the high ground invariably possess a valuable psychological advantage. Throughout history, successive generations have striven to control the highest places, for they were well aware that with elevation came power and control. It is truly inescapable. No matter where we wander among the highlands of Ireland, we find history has loaded our most elevated places with unforgettable stories and captivating legends. It has also lauded them in song and story, for through the ages the uplands have been inextricably intertwined with the ebb and flow of Irish history.
For more exclusive content about adventures in the Irish highlands, subscribe to The Irish Spirit Newsletter and read Wild Stories from the Irish Uplands by John G. O’Dwyer.
