Mountain speaks

RADAR:The first Irishman to reach the summit of Everest, Belfast climber DAWSON STELFOXhas braved summits from Iran to Peru and Pakistan

Twenty years ago next May, when former president Mary Robinson was making history by meeting Queen Elizabeth II, The Irish Times was first to report that the first Irishman had reached the summit of Everest.

Next Thursday (November 29th), Belfast architect and mountaineer Dawson Stelfox will reflect on his successful summit attempt with the support of seven other climbers, Sherpas and support team at the second annual Lynam Lecture in Trinity College, Dublin (TCD).

Stelfox, who has done much to nurture young climbers, will also reflect on early expeditions to Iran, Peru, India, Pakistan and Nepal – and, more controversially, on what Everest has become. It’s a theme also addressed in the 20th anniversary edition of Everest Calling by Lorna Siggins and climber Dermot Somers, with an introduction by Stelfox, due to be published by Collins Press next Spring (2013).

Stelfox will be presented at the lecture with the Lynam medal, commissioned by Mountaineering Ireland in memory of the late upland advocate and climber

Joss Lynam (1924-2011).

Indian mountaineer and former editor of The Himalayan Journal, Harish Kapadia, was first recipient of the same award.

The Lynam Lecture takes place in TCD’s Edmund Burke Theatre on Thursday, November 29th at 8pm.

[ mountaineering.ie ]