I hit rock bottom but I managed to climb my way out of it
ONE of Ireland’s top adventurers has revealed climbing mountains turned his life around after he almost took his own life having lost millions.
Pat Falvey, who has climbed to the summit of Mount Everest twice and has completed 155 expeditions across the world, almost drowned himself after he went broke at the age of 29.
The 61-year-old Cork man became a millionaire by the time he was 21 and employed 200 people in his construction firm after leaving school at just 15.
However, his world came tumbling down eight years later when he lost his fortune and risked losing his home during the recession in the 1980s.
Pat told the Irish Mirror: “I thought I had the midas touch in a sense, and then the recession came and I went broke.
“I was 29 and I thought I let my wife and family down so I tried to take my own life.
“As I was just about to enter the water down the quays in Cork, I saw my two kids. I just stopped, and couldn’t believe I almost did that. So I came back and told people what I was going through. Coming from a background where people told me I couldn’t do it [become successful], but I did it and lost it. It was like, ‘We told you so’.
“Your greatest fear is the fear of your peers and what they think.
“That was a major turning point that changed the rest of my life.
“One of my secretaries at the time, her father was involved in hill walking.
“This guy came into my office one day and asked me would I go hill walking.
“I had a big boardroom at the time and I was sitting there, depressed. I said,
Signing copies of his new book ‘Get out of my office – I’m a workaholic, not a walkaholic’. The guy forced me to go hill walking that Sunday. He kept pestering me until I gave up.”
Pat told of how after his first expedition, he arranged to climb Carrauntoohill the following weekend.
After he conquered Ireland’s highest mountain, he vowed to take on Mount Everest – which he did seven years later.
Since then, he has become first person in the world to complete the Seven Summits twice by climbing Everest from its north and south sides.
He was also the leader of the first
CORK YESTERDAY
Irish-led team to reach the South Pole. After three decades, Pat has stepped back from being an adventurer and has penned a memoir called Accidental Rebel.
Explaining why he decided to write the book, he said: “I got to 60 and over 30 of my friends had died and basically I started to reflect on what my life had been up to then.
“I just logged it and found out I’m a selfish b ***** d. I found that if I kept going the way I was going, then everyone would be getting older and I’d be in my 70s or 80s and I wouldn’t have picked up on the good quality of life.
“I had two grandchildren so it was time to reflect that I could die from an expedition.
“So I decided to change my life from being an extreme adventurer to actually starting to ease off and give family and friends, who still had my back through all this time, more.”
■ Accidental Rebel is on sale now from bookstores nationwide and online at www.patfalvey.com.
As I was about to enter the water I saw my two kids and stopped PAT FALVEY