Our mountains offer the aspiring hillwalker a mix of local history, legends, beautiful scenery and exercise. John G. O'Dwyer gives some hints on eading the landscape and details three of Ireland's best hillwalking routes
They just can't just help it - mountains are natural attention grabbers. Great peaks exert a magnetic eye-pull to the high places where legend traditionally sites the abode of demons and devilish deities. Unsurprisingly then, the forbidding summits of great mountains such as Kilimanjaro, Blanc and Everest have evoked equal measures of fear and fascination among up-gazing peoples. Most often they were seen as evil places with early climbers commonly regarded as reckless fate-tempters.
This was never the case in Ireland. Our hills are on an altogether different, more human scale, where people fit in easily, even on the summits. There is no mountain top in Ireland that cannot be reached on a good day by an averagely fit walker, using nothing more technical than sustained legwork. It isn't surprising then that salient summits - such as Gullion in Co Armagh, Slievenamon in Co Tipperary and Croagh Patrick in Co Mayo - became not objects of fear but comforting parts of the heroic myths that bound communities before the arrival of Christianity.
Like ageing divas, however, mountains show their best side to the uninitiated, when appreciated from afar. Romantic tales are most alluring when the diva or the hill is far away - on stage or horizon. Get closer and the magic may at first be lessened.
Most Irish mountains consist of rounded peaks with inhospitable flattened tops that are cold, windy and eroded, while very often mist obscures the wished-for view. Come to our mountains with a vision informed by the idealised paintings of the romantic period and you are almost certainly bound for disappointment. Mostly it is not the weather or the unforgiving terrain that spoils the romance, but the work of man.
Human influence is everywhere. There are trig points, sculptures, deflector masts, tombs, crosses, altars, towers, huts and, of course, the ubiquitous cairns. The historic, the aesthetic, the commercial and the spiritual all jostle for the psychological dominance offered by the highest summits.
Simply put, wilderness, when defined as landscape unaltered by human intervention, exists nowhere on this island. Every landscape - from brook to beach, mountain to marsh, hedge to heath - is shaped by human need. But would our mountains be some way better if preserved in pre-human perfection? Probably not.
Mountains are at their best when they contribute to the living. A booley in a high place tells the story of contribution to human existence - a farmstead on a mountainside demonstrates the success of this contribution.
The legends, the megalithic tombs, the bridle paths, the dry stone walls are not incongruous intrusions, but monuments to how we use the uplands. Politically, economically or spiritually - depending on perceived need - the powerful symbolism and economic value of our mountains has been exploited historically to support and bind communities.
It's just inescapable. No matter where you ramble, our mountains are loaded with legend. The secret is to do a little research before you ascend. Then set-off upwards and the very rocks will shout of the past. To get you on the road (or should I say path), I have described below three peaks that are knee deep in history and legend. All you need is to know a little about reading the fascinating landscape.
Slievenamon, Co Tipperary
Travelling from Clonmel to Kilkenny, branch left for Ballypatrick after seven miles and follow the signs for Slievenamon summit until you reach an enclosed lane. At the end of this lane, pass on to open mountain.
Follow the obvious track that heads directly for the summit, which is crowned by a huge burial cairn reputed to contain the entrance to the celtic underworld.
A large rock is believed to be Fionn MacCumhail's seat where he watched female candidates for his hand in matrimony race to the summit. Legend has it he cheated and helped his favourite, Gráinne, win the race. She was apparently unimpressed by such chivalry. During the subsequent wedding banquet she eloped with Diarmuid, thereby creating the tragic melodrama of Diarmuid and Gráinne.
As you descend you will see on the lower slopes the ruins of Kilcash Castle, once a Butler stronghold. The fall of this great house was recorded by an unknown poet around 1650. Cill Chais remains well known to most schoolchildren as a famous lament for the decline of Gaelic Ireland. Try to recall the words on the last leg of your two-and-a-half hours total walking time.
Slieve Gullion, Co Armagh
From the village of Meigh in south Armagh follow the signs for Slieve Gullion to the Courtyard Centre. Here you can continue driving effortlessly upwards by following a mountain roadway. Once the road clears the tree line it is possible to climb to the summit in about 30 minutes by scrambling upwards on rough, heathery ground. The mountaintop consists of a great whaleback adorned with two cairns and a small lake.
To the south you will gaze over the Gap of the North, which saw much military action during the recent Troubles. A few remaining hilltop lookout posts still remain as monuments to these times and the strategic importance of the area.
It certainly has had a long history of turbulence going back to the time of the Tain Bó Cuailgne (the Cattle Raid of Cooley). It was then, according to legend, that Cuchulainn successfully defended Ulster single-handedly against the armies of Queen Maeve of Connacht.
On Gullion's summit, Fionn MacCumhail reputedly had another unfortunate experience with a female enchantress. Miluchra lured him into the summit lake. He emerged as a white-haired old man. His companions forced the enchantress to restore Fionn to youth, but his great head of red hair was gone forever. To this day the superstition survives that if you bathe in this lough your hair will turn instantly white.
A huge volcanic explosion seems another unlikely legend but this one is certainly true. The surrounding Ring Dyke of Gullion, which makes an amazing sight from the summit, is all that remains of a once almighty volcano, which fortunately exploded more than 60 million years ago.
Mount Brandon, Co Kerry
Mount Brandon has a long history of pilgrimage, which continues annually with a Pattern Sunday climb. Beyond Cloghane village follow the sign left for Brandon.
Park where the road ends near a brightly coloured farmhouse. Follow a lane on the right of this farmhouse on to open mountain. A rough track past a hillside grotto eventually leads to a spectacular glaciated coum.
As Brandon is a high and exposed mountain it is best to turn back here if you doubt the weather or your fitness. Otherwise, follow a track on the right and then drop to cross the top of the coum from where a steep path zigzags to the ridge. Here, the trail leads left and easily to the summit, which bears a metal cross and ruined oratory reputed to have been built by St Brendan.
Surprisingly, the mountain is most likely named not after St Brendan, but after Bran, an ancient Celtic God - hence the different spelling. Nevertheless, it is to all intents and purposes St Brendan's mountain.
Legend has it that he climbed to the summit for prayer before setting sail for Greenland and onwards, becoming the first European to reach North America.
Certainly the view from the summit is inspirational. In clear weather, the panorama is amazing with high mountains, deep blue sea, the drowned hills forming the Blasket Islands and perhaps you may just imagine the shimmering outline of Atlantis in the western ocean.
Return by the same route, taking care not to miss the path from the ridge that leads you back to Faha after an outing of about five hours.
John G. O'Dwyer is a Tipperary-based hillwalker and mountain leader
Inside track: Book Your Trip to the Tip
Both Exploring the South of Ireland and Exploring the North of Ireland by Paddy Dillion (Ward Lock Books,London) are good value for their accurate route descriptions, high quality photographs and historic detail on the three peaks described above and on all of Ireland's major mountains.
For background information refer to The Way That I Went by Robert Lloyd Praeger. First published almost 70 years ago and reprinted by Collins press, it remains a comprehensive introduction to understanding the Irish landscape.
Other useful texts:
• The Irish Landscape: Scenery to Celebrate, by Charles Hepworth Holland(Dunedin Academic Press).
• The Hills of Cork & Kerry, by Richard Mersey (Gill and Macmillan).
• Slievenamon in song and in story, written and published by Sean Nugent (Printed by Kilkenny People).