Remembering a map-maker: watch Tim Robinson’s Connemara on TG4 03|06|2020

Tim Robinson’s Connemara with a “Connemara stone” from Ballyheigue Beach.

Things happen in threes, so they say. 

Cathy Galvin, a poet and journalist whose family emigrated from Mason’s Island in Connemara, contacted me about Charles R. Browne’s ethnographic study of Carna. Cathy also sent me an essay by Kevin T. James on the meaning of “emptiness” in Connemara. 

James built his essay around an entry in the visitors’ book of Mongan’s Hotel, the pub/shop/hotel operated by Martin Mongan in Carna in the 1890s. Mongan is an intriguing character and, as usual, I consulted Tim Robinson on Mongan, Mason’s Island, and the tricky issue of the emptiness of Connemara.

I had just begun re-reading Robinson’s Connemara: listening to the wind (first published in 2006) when I went for a walk (keeping within 5K) on Ballyheigue Beach and found several “Connemara Stones” in the intertidal zone, a favourite haunt of Tim Robinson’s. “Connemara Stones” are erratics, granite rocks that were picked up by a glacier in Connemara and carried south until the ice melted and dropped the stones at various sites in Kerry (see the Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association, 119, 2 (2008): 137-152). 

Synchronicity or what?

Tim Robinson 1935-2020 (Photograph: Nicolas Fève).

Then, TG4 announced the screening of a new film that it is broadcasting in memory of Tim Robinson and his wife and longtime collaborator Mairéad Robinson. The film explores the Robinsons’ topographical study of Connemara over thirty years. 

Tim Robinson’s Connemara: listening to the wind is an intriguing book that has at its core an environmentalist’s awareness of the tension between emptiness and settlement over several centuries of social, political, and cultural disruption, a theme that he developed in a series of walks through the landscape. 

5.07pm, May 27th, 1993 …

‘Everest calling Rongbuk. Come in please, over . . . Dermot. The altimeter is reading 8,848 metres and I’m sitting on the summit of the world.”

This was the moment Dawson Stelfox radioed Dermot Somers to let him know that he had reached the summit of Mount Everest. Stelfox was the leader of the 1993 IRISH EVEREST EXPEDITION, which included Frank Nugent (deputy leader); Dermot Somers; Robbie Fenlon; Mike Barry; Richard O’Neill Dean; Mick Murphy and Tony Burke.

27 years on, Dawson Stelfox relives the experience in an interview with Sarah McInerney on RTE Radio 1. Tune in to Today with Sarah McInerney.

Mike O’Neill

It was with great sadness that we learned of the death of Mike O’Neill.

One of the best things about being a mountaineer in Kerry was being served a pint by Mike in the Railway Tavern Bar after a day in the hills. He was a wonderful friend to all of us, keen to share our love of the mountains and always looking out for us. He will be missed.

For more, read Tracy’s tribute to her Dad on the Railay Tavern Bar FaceBook Page.

Mountain Log: January 2020

 

 

 

the mountaineering collective | 2020

 

 

Nollag Shona | Happy Christmas

 

A Profile of Ireland’s Uplands: essential reading for mountaineers # 1

 

The Irish Uplands Forum (Fórum Cnoch na hÉireann) commissioned Dr Brendan O’Keeffe and Dr Caroline Crowley to write this study of the Irish uplands. The Heritage Council published it in October 2019. Michael Viney had an interesting review of the study in The  Irish Times over the weekend, under a headline that says it all: These hills are made for walking. Viney, however, highlights access as a key issue for the 13,000 plus mountaineers and hillwalkers who make up the membership of 186 clubs in Ireland.

He identifies two factors that will have influence on access in the future. The first is a shift from sheep farming to off-farm employment and a parallel rise in (a) the number of “large sheep ranches” and (b) hillside houses occupied by “commuters, retirees and holiday homeowners.” We have seen the problems this has created in places like Glanteenassig in County Kerry.

 

Off limits: access to this hill in Gelanteenassig was blocked after the land was inherited from the original owner. Before that it was a popular walking/mountaineering route located next to a recreational area developed by Coillte. Photo: Walking Routes Ireland.

 

The second is that government action on the roll out of access programmes stalled since 2009, when voluntary agreement between mountaineering interests and landowners created pilot projects in two areas, Mount Gable near Clonbur, Co Galway and Carrauntoohil in the MacGillycuddy Reeks, Co Kerry; just two of the 57 mountain ranges identified in the report. However, O’Keeffe and Crowley note that “key stakeholder groups remain committed to its vision.”

 

©Valerie O’Sullivan, The MacGillycuddy’s Reeks.

 

As Viney points out, most of Ireland’s uplands are farmlands but adds that “sheep, significantly, get a mention on only four of the study’s 140-odd pages.” That is worrying, given the traditional partnership between mountaineers and sheep farmers, people like Martin (RIP) and Nóirín Griffin in Derrymore Glen (Slieve Mish), Mick Murphy in Knocknagantee (Iveragh) and, of course, John and Esther Cronin of Cronin’s Yard in the Reeks. That partnership is captured by mountaineer and photographer Valerie O’Sullivan in The MacGillycuddy’s Reeks: People and Places of Ireland’s Highest Mountain Range , which Frank Miller, former Picture Editor of The Irish Times, described as ‘An intimate and beautiful portrait of the people and landscape of Ireland’s loftiest place.’

 

Mick Murphy and Elizabeth Lynch. Photo: Mike Slattery.

 

This aspect of the Irish uplands deserved more attention in the study. Nevertheless, A Profile of Ireland’s Uplands is essential reading for mountaineers and hillwalkers. To obtain an Executive Summary click HERE. To obtain the full report click HERE.

 

Links / Resources

 

For more information, have a look at the current edition of the Mountain Log

 

 

The Mountaineering Collective | December 2019

 

 

Don’t Adjust your sets ….

… retuning in progress!

 

 

 

 

 

Log: Donegal | Poison Glen to Slieve Sneachta: 21/10/2018

The Poison Glen, Derryveagh Mountains. The route is up a gully in the centre of the wall at the back of the valley. Approaching the wall felt very like something out of Game of Thrones.

TBC

Transmission Resumes …

 

TUNE IN

 

TMC Members blog is back. The blog is

by members for members

this is NOT an official club blog and but is dedicated to mountaineers and all things mountainy

 

ENJOY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Una Finn (1924-2018)

 

Una (Agnes) Finn was an honorary life member of Tralee Mountaineering Club. Una Sullivan was born in Dublin. She grew up there and worked in the Central Bank. She met Tom Finn on a cycling trip in Achill and she  moved to Tralee after they got married in 1958.

 

L-R: Marie Ahern, Rose Switzer, and Una Finn. Photo: Tom Finn collection

L-R: Marie Ahern, Rose Switzer, and Una Finn. Photo: Tom Finn collection.

 

Una was an active member of the club, one of a generation of women who blazed a trail in mountaineering in Ireland, She entered a sport that hardly catered for women, gear was hard to come by for everyone, but women especially. They improvised–wore men’s gear– and ensured that women were represented on a equal level in club activities.

 

Rose and Denis Switzer, Honorary Life Members of Tralee Mountaineering Club, with Marie Ward. Rose and Una were climbing buddies. They were among the large number of people who gathered in Una’s home to pay their respects..

 

The house became  a hub of mountaineering in Kerry and a large number of club members gathered in the house to pay their final respects.

 

In later years Una went for a walk every day, cutting a striking figure as she made he  the trip to the local shop. She kept going until a few months before death.

 

Ar dheis dé go rabid a hanam.