The call of the faraway hills
Hiking the hills and waymarked trails of Ireland has never been as popular or attractive for a country hiccupping through lockdowns. Donal O’donoghue recalls some favourite hikes
We were descending Brandon Peak when a figure appeared out of the mist. He was wearing a greatcoat, mud-spattered trousers and a pair of battered Wellingtons. A clatter of sheepdogs loped warily in his wake. “Grand day” says himself, as we approached, decked out in the finest hiking clobber in the land. I wiped the wet from my glasses. The dogs sniffed my Gore-tex boots. “Where are ye off to lads?” he asked. We nodded towards Mount Brandon (or where we imagined it to be). Himself was out for a ramble, counting his sheep, and hopeful of a natter with whomever. Some time later, ascending via the Pilgrim’s route, he was there again, a distant figure striding purposefully towards some unknown destination. And I knew that he too, like us, was having a grand day out.
I’ve long loved the hills, their allure and their aloneness. Maybe it came from growing up in the shadow of the Cork and Kerry mountains, a panorama stretching from Clara in the east to the westerly Paps and beyond to the ghostly blue of the mighty Reeks. In teen years you’d cycle your dad’s bike, a workhorse with just one gear, to the foothills, abandon it in a gateway and head for the heights of Caherbarnagh; past the dark lake, with its tragic past, and up the H-shaped scar, cut into the hillside by a lightning strike in the ’50s. On top, the view stretched forever, the mast on Mullaghanish a sentinel poking out of the rolling wilderness. And as you gazed, the wonder grew, a magic and mystery that has never left.
Since the Great Lockdown of 2020, hiking has helped keep me (and I imagine countless others) sane, hitting the hills and trails when restrictions allowed. In that time, there was a moonlight ramble in the Dublin mountains on the day before the country shut up shop again over Christmas 2020. There were morning scrambles up the scree sides of the Great Sugar Loaf in Wicklow, a walk on the wild side (is
We might inwardly curse the elements but back at the car, squeezing the rivers from the socks and rubbing life into the fingers, you say ‘Wasn’t that the greatest hike ever?
As you gazed, the wonder grew, a magic and mystery that has never left
there any other?) of Connacht’s highest peak, Mweelrea, when the wind threatened to blow you into the next parish and the driving rain and mist made a fool of your senses. On an epic hike of the Glencoaghan horseshoe in Connemara, the phone was destroyed and the wedding ring was lost somewhere on those nine peaks of hellish weather. But no matter – to be out, even if it was just a stroll in the local park, was to be alive.
At home, stacked amid the hiking books, is an ancient copy of Michael Fewer’s Way-marked Trails of Ireland (1996, now out of print). It is long faded by the elements and use, its pages scribbled with the numbers of various hostels and B&BS not listed in the appendix. Over 14 chapters, from The Aran Ways to the Wicklow Way, Fewer criss-crosses the country, and re-reading those pages takes me back to crisp summer mornings setting out along a green boreen fringed with fuchsia and alive with birdsong and the odd growl of a tractor. The trails, mapped out in their various stages (The Western Way with 10 is the longest), involve an investment of time and some effort (it took me two sorties into the deep south to complete the rugged Beara Way).
Of course, hiking is not all sunshine and panoramic views. This is Ireland and there have been umpteen squelchy sodden hikes in dirty mists and driving rain and numbing wind. Occasionally, thoughts like ‘I can’t feel my fingers! Will I get frostbite?’ or ‘How soon before you get trench-foot?’ trouble the wandering mind. And those who like to chirrup that ‘there’s no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing’ have never been out in a gale atop Mweelrea, icy rain pelting down and water insinuating itself into every nook and cranny. In Irish weather, even the finest hiking gear takes a batin’. But decent boots, lined hat, waterproof and lined gloves, decent waterpoof leggings, gaiters, a fleece and a shell jacket are a must.
On hikes we talk of food and drink. Not just what you plan to imbibe once you get to journey’s end but what’s for dinner that evening, a jousting conversation that can quickly develop into a game of gourmet one-upmanship. “Irish stew? Ah we’re having panfried sole served with wild rice and steamed organic broccoli!” Before you know it, you’re talking fine wines and listing favourite-ever meals, and the hunger grows and we need to make a brief stop to retrieve the floppy ham sandwich that is getting wet and miserable in the backpack. But that too is a ritual, as is the talk of past hikes and how they compare to this one and whether a pint of plain is bettered by a lager shandy or a sparkling glass of Coke. And of course we might inwardly curse the elements but back at the car, squeezing the rivers from the socks and rubbing life into the fingers, you say ‘Wasn’t that the greatest hike ever?’
Mount Brandon, the highest peak in the land outside of the Macgillycuddy Reeks, remains a favourite hike, the preferred ascent from Cloghane, through the Owennafeana River Valley with the mountain towering above. I still can see, on an autumn descent to Cloghane, that harvest moon hanging in the sky like a beacon of better times to come. And if you’re thinking of climbing Carrauntuohill, then an ascent from Lough Acoose, up the hydro road and onto Caher is, on a clear day (which can be rarer than hen’s teeth hereabouts), a magnificent ridge walk. If you are thinking Carrauntouhill, avoid the Devil’s Ladder, messy and crumbling from overuse. And if you’re looking for more information, Gill Books have a list of titles covering walks and hikes.
The most recent hike was Leinster’s highest peak, the flat-capped Lugnaquilla (925m) in south Wicklow. We ascended by the Zig Zags (Yellow Route) from Glenmalure and descended via Fraughan Rock Glen (Red Route), a wonderful horseshoe hike that required two cars, otherwise you will have a long road walk from the end point at Baravore car park to the start point. Conditions on Lug, like all mountains, can change dramatically as you ascend, with the temperature dropping, the wind rising and the mist rolling in. Fortunately, that day the skies were blue and the views were 360, although the wind was biting cold on the gentle slope to the cairn at the summit. And that day too the hill was alive with walkers but no one was sporting Wellingtons.
The most famous quote in mountaineering is George Mallory’s reply to a New York Times reporter when asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest. “Because it’s there,” said the Englishman, who disappeared close to the summit on his third attempt at Everest in 1924. Most hikers will never climb those mighty mountains, but they will understand the call of the wild, that desire to get out there and find solitude or company on the trail or in the hills. And often, out in rain or sunshine, blinded by mist or gobsmacked by the view, talking of food and drink or simply head down and trudging, I’m back on a hill on the Cork and Kerry mountains: knee deep in gorse, the sun dipping behind the Paps and wondering if my father’s bike is still where I left it.