Valerie brings gold down from on high

REEKS DAZZLE IN STUNNING NEW PUBLICATION BY VALERIE O’SULLIVAN

FROM Pa Joe Kissane of Kilgobnet to the Tangneys of the Black Valley, Eileen Cronin of the ‘real HQ’ of the mountains at Cronin’s Yard and seemingly every other denizen of the great community in between, it’s the people of the MacGillycuddy’s Reeks as much as the stunning landscape that inspires award-winning photographer Valerie O’Sullivan – as her stunning new book attests.

The MacGillycuddy’s Reeks: People and Places of Ireland’s Highest Mountain Range is simply breathtaking and a major addition to the published lore of the county in the first comprehensive account of life in this mountain community.

Expert essays and interviews on everything from the archaeology and people of the Reeks jostle to perfection with the beautiful images.

And it’s all in aid of our very own sherpas in the Kerry Mountain Rescue Team; close friends of Valerie’s all, who she has chronicled over the years in situations that would make most of us quail. They get their own richly-deserved chapter in one of the most visually-arresting parts of the whole tome in Valerie’s coverage of winter training atop the dizzying pinnacle of Cnoc Tinne.

That’s saying a lot, as the competi- tion across the rest of Valerie’s book when it comes to matters visually-arresting is, like the Reeks, fairly steep.

Only for Valerie’s relentless scrambling do most of us have a sense of what it is like up the mountains in all seasons, with her snaps regularly illuminating local and national news pages.

Take one of the big winter news stories of recent years on the Reeks and another great part of the book: Valerie was there every step of the way to document locals in raising the summit cross on Carrauntoohil once more after vandals had cut it down.

Now the Reekers are preparing for one big mountain hoe down this coming Saturday night to give The MacGillycuddy’s Reeks and the photographer who celebrates them a launch befitting such a gargantuan subject – at Kate Kearney’s at 6.30pm. And it you can’t make it, you’ll find a copy in your nearest bookshop.

There are few lengths to which Valerie O’Sullivan is not prepared to go for that perfect shot.

Kerry Mountain Rescue Team, on a special Winter Training exercise on Cnoc Toinne, MacGillycuddy’s Reeks, Co Kerry, from left, John

One girl and her dog: Tara Foley (11) of Cuas and collie Knockmaa Zweep shepherding under the cold mountains.