It was more pleasure than penance for many of the pilgrims who climbed the precipitous but newly restored pathway to Croagh Patrick’s pyramidal peak on a cloudy day this week.
Gaeilgeoirí pals from the Connemara village of Ceathrú Rua, Caoimhín Connolly, Kevin Kelly and Seán Ó Flathartha agreed it was “all about the achievement” as they rested at the base shortly after noon on Thursday.
“We weren’t too interested in the little oratory at the top, it was more about how freezing cold the wind was up there,” says Ó Flatharta.
For secondary school teacher Caoimhín Connolly, it was his first time to climb the 764 metre-high holy mountain.
‘I felt it was very safe in comparison with stories I’ve heard about the steepness and the dangers on the cone. I think I’ll bring my six-year-old son the next time’
— Caoimhín Connolly
The restored pathway, which runs for 4km from the base to the summit, was devised and led by Scottish expert Matt McConway alongside a team of four local men. It involved the movement by hand of thousands of tonnes of rocks and soil over the last three years.
“I felt it was very safe in comparison with stories I’ve heard about the steepness and the dangers on the cone. I think I’ll bring my six-year-old son the next time. It only took us about two and a half hours up and down. You know, I might even organise to climb it with some of my pupils,” says Connolly.
His friend, Kevin, a primary school teacher, had been up the mountain five or six times already and agrees that the major restoration project, which includes steps on the steepest inclines, means “it is much safer”.
“If some of our other mountains had their pathways marked like this, it would really encourage more people to enjoy hiking,” Kelly says.
The 4km climb may not quite be a walk in the park for physiotherapist Kate Creaby, a native of Colorado who moved with her husband and three children to her husband’s native Westport last August, but it is a regular climb for her.
“My daughter is having a riding lesson down at the bottom of the mountain in the Croagh Patrick Stables, so I sometimes climb it for the exercise,” she says.
“Before the pathway was upgraded and the steps had been built, coming down through the scree at the top was very dodgy. It is much safer now. Actually, my husband runs up and down it about once a week.”
Meanwhile, there is a group of incoming volunteer Croagh Patrick ambassadors sitting on the side of the pathway engrossed in a tutorial, led by the Leave No Trace group. It is their second day of training, having met the path restoration team the previous day.
Directing the group is Clare Masterson, a project officer with Leave No Trace Ireland.
“The path restoration has allowed the mountain to breathe again. There has been a significant regeneration of the habitats already in the three years since the project started
— Ged Dowling, volunteer
“We established this initiative in 2022 in consultation with the Croagh Patrick Stakeholders group to help espouse the Leave No Trace principles of minimal impact to the environment. In this case it is the mountain with its thousands of visitors each year,” she says.
Masterson explains that this second round of recruitment and training of volunteer ambassadors has been made possible through funding by the 2024 Heritage Stewardship Fund.
For outgoing volunteer Ged Dowling, whose day job is wilderness sherpa for Co Mayo-based cultural hiking company Terra Firma, “the mountain means a lot of different things to different people”.
“The path restoration has allowed the mountain to breathe again. There has been a significant regeneration of the habitats already in the three years since the project started,” says Dowling.
“Whilst safety has been an important result of the restoration project, the primary intention was to save the mountain from further erosion due to the 100,000-plus people climbing it each year.”
Nobody is more aware than path restoration project team member Frank McMahon of the positive impact of the three-year project. After all, it is a decade since a Mountaineering Ireland report concluded the pathway needed “a major intervention”.
“From the statue up, we have cleared a two-metre-wide path and closed off lots of other routes that were causing erosion through footfall. This has allowed the vegetation to be re-established. Anywhere where the path is steep we have built steps from the native stone,” McMahon says..
[ A holy mountain: Croagh Patrick in myth, prehistory and historyOpens in new window ]
Significantly, it is not only the climbers he meets every day who have said the path is safer but, he says, Mayo Mountain Rescue have recorded a big reduction in accidents.
McMahon agrees that the mountain has increasingly become a challenge for fitness enthusiasts.
“But there are also the people praying all the way up and some of them barefoot for religious reasons or going barefoot just to say they have done it,” he says.
“There are the Instagram people trying to get that perfect sunrise and, of course, the Traveller community has such great faith in the religious significance of the mountain and they come up from March to September, no matter what the weather is like.”
‘We are big into keeping fit and while we don’t come for the religious aspect we are aware of the important heritage and history’
— Claire Coleman
Meteorological conditions aren’t a problem for Claire Coleman and her children, Grace Keane (16) and twins Nicholas and Christopher (12).
The family from Oranmore, Co Galway, has just returned from the sunshine of a Spanish holiday and while Claire has her packed vegan snacks for a picnic at the top, the children are opting for something a tad less penitential.
“I have read about the pathway work and it will certainly make the mountain more accessible for people. We are big into keeping fit and while we don’t come for the religious aspect we are aware of the important heritage and history,” says Claire.
As they head off up the pathway as lithe as mountain goats, she shouts back: “You can’t beat the west of Ireland, can you?”
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