The water was actually running down through the sleeve of the right arm of my jacket and out through the left. I was trying to climb through a torrent and was starting to realise that we hadn’t picked the best day for our second attempt on this gully at Coumtay in the Comeragh Mountains. We had reached this point by some easy scrambling and a more difficult squeeze through the roof of a cave, but now the huge overhang with its crack on the left had a cascade of water flowing down it and it had stopped us yet again. We weren’t climbers, although we were experts at surmounting all sorts of dubious gullies and steep ground and we had spent a fair bit of time messing about with ropes and other bits of gear in Scotland. It was time to find some routes to attack that were drier, less mossy and less strewn with dead sheep. We were going to have to become rockclimbers.

Above: Kenneth Rouse on Monkey Business (HS 4b) on the south facing cliff at Coumshingaun in the Comeraghs.

A couple of weeks later on a misty but dryish day, I found myself half way up another gully, this time at Coumshingaun, clasping the classic ‘Interim Guide to Rock Climbing in the Comeragh Mountains and South East’. There were three of us, one pair of rock shoes and a few new bits of gear. I was in no way ready to lead "Karaluk - HS 4b" which we were attempting to find but when you start climbing without other climbers being around, you don’t know any better. I slipped off the start but got straight back on. The only other thing I remember from my first lead was the precarious traverse back into the gully when we were finished. I decided that we better learn how to abseil properly.

Above: Abseiling from Karaluk Buttress at Coumshingaun.

A few pages down in the guidebook with the same HS grade but with two pitches and a 4c thrown in is: "A walk on the west end". The mist was burning off so we had no choice but to give it a go. I dropped the belay device after the initial pitch for the first and not the last time, but after the shoe exchange, I headed off up the ‘crux’ second pitch. It was hard and my hands were starting to cramp up but I kept at it and when I got to the top and could look back down the climb and out over the lake, I knew I would be back for more. One of the nuts I placed that afternoon, didn’t come out for about four years and the few times I repeated the route afterwards, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how I had ever managed to get up it the first time.

Above: Paul McSweeney on Ser Visal's tail (HS 4b) on the south facing cliff at Coumshingaun.

You will never find a giant bong at the start of a climb at Coumshingaun, nor will you have a fox run off with your lunch but along with a vast array of easily findable and leadable climbs, they are the kind of discoveries that make Dalkey a fantastic place. Anytime that we went, we went for the day and refused to leave until it was dark and we had led or seconded at least a dozen routes. On the last day of climbing that first summer I was destined to spend a half hour in twilight struggling at the crux of Gwynne’s Chimney while being admired by a Dutch climber whose encouragement stopped at ‘in my country, we use bolts’.

Above: Kenneth on the classic Quartz Gully at Glendalough.

In the end I had to leave it for another year. But we had made a good start on the quarry with Paul leading confidently up Helios and me eventually getting up Streetfighter. We had also taken a look at Glendalough. Quartz Gully was good but when we looked across at the climbers on Nightmare Ledge, we wanted to join them. A few weeks later, Paul led the last pitch of Prelude Nightmare and the first time we took that sensational swing right onto to the hanging slab, there was an unforgettable thrill. Where to next?

Above: Climbers at Glendalough with an impressive view of the valley.

Donegal is a long, long way from Waterford. We had somehow convinced the Group Leader and Treasurer of the De La Salle Scouts that it would be a good idea to give us a few pounds towards a rock-climbing course on Gola Island. We had just spent a week camping at Fethard on Sea in Wexford but four of us squashed in to a Peugeot 106 for the journey to this wild yet idyllic, deserted island. There was a lot of rain and midgets but the ancient vango force ten handled them well. We didn’t bring enough food and we didn’t do enough climbing but we learnt that sauceless pasta with gammon steaks and pineapple makes for an absolutely terrible meal. However the island with its impending granite sea cliffs and the trip itself left a strong impression and we could now set up belays, anchors and abseils in fifteen different ways.

Above: On Dark Angel (HVS 5a) at Coumshingaun.

A week later, the knowledge came in handy on Prelude, a somewhat hysterical, mostly vegetated but extremely atmospheric route up the back cliff at Coumshingaun. We had to do a lot of digging to find gear placements and had to use clumps of grass and heather as our main holds. But when we reached the ledge at the top of the first tier of the cliff, it was great to be able to wonder if we were the first people up the route since its first ascent twenty two years earlier.

Above: Everybody's first Burren climb - Genesis (HS 4b) at Ailladie.

When we arrived back at the campsite in Doolin after our first day’s climbing in the Burren, the owner remarked that if she had managed to get a proper look at us the night before, she wouldn’t have let us in at all. The classic Genesis had been our first route as everything else had looked too hard. The guidebook was full of stuff that we didn’t dare to lead especially after one of the plentiful showers of rain that weekend. Those circumstances forced me on to the terrible Gogo from which I took a reasonably spectacular fall. None of my gear held and I landed right in the middle of a pool of water. I got away with just a mildly sprained ankle and a shaken pride. Cycling back from the village to the campsite on an old bike I had found behind the pub was as much rest as I needed and the next day I was back on some of the easier routes at Ballyryan. We had yet to discover climbing walls or training and the Burren is a place where you need to be strong.

Above: Leading Bonnan Bui (VS 4c) at Ailladie in the Burren.

The following summer, we were back and this time I was in better shape. One day in particular stands out. We had warmed up by climbing all seven short routes on the Small Wall at Aill na Cronain over near the Ailwee Cave. When I got back to Ailladie I was ready for anything and in quick succession led Genesis, Bonnan Bui, Ladda, Box of Chocks and finished with Nutrocker. Somedays you only just about get up a route but that day it was all plain sailing. There is no greater feeling than when you are climbing at your best.

Above: Colm Ennis and John Kinsella on Nutrocker (HVS 5a) in the Burren.

I love hillwalking and hiking up and across mountains. The longer and more difficult the route, the better. The beautiful places you get to see, the people you spend time with and the challenges you surmount are all part of what makes it so central to your existence. Climbing has all of those elements but there is also something else and you can find it without climbing anything very hard which I haven’t or being technically very good, which I am not. It happens when you are lead climbing at the top of your ability and there is good route in front of you. For those minutes there is nothing else in the world except you and how you can move and the difficulties that the rock presents to you. Your mind is completely clear and focused and nothing else matters. When you reach the top, you are either thrilled or relived or both and everything else starts flooding back in again, but it is those few minutes of complete focus or ‘nothing elseness’ that for me, is what climbing is all about.

Above: Looking for the hidden jug on Bruce's Corner (VS 4c) at Glendalough.

There is no such clarity while you are cursing and swearing trying to retrieve a stuck size two rigid Friend from some obnoxious crack. The more we climbed, the more that same Friend always got stuck before finally on its fourth birthday we lost it behind a flake while backing off a route called Yellow Crack in Llanberis. Meanwhile a size four Camp pro nut remains my most consistently used piece of gear. I quite possibly have placed it on every route that I have ever climbed. The size 000 micro nut that I found one day in Ballykeefe has still never been used and I am not sure that I would even trust it as a keyring. Finding and retrieving gear that someone else has left behind is always very satisfying and I have certainly climbed a few routes just to rescue a nice piece of abandoned gear. After all, paying for one new wing of the Great Outdoors is more than enough.

Above: John Kinsella leads Lion (VS 4c) at Clogwyn Y Grochan in Llanberis.

Gear does love to get stuck and relishes doing so while you are on a route, it has started to rain, you can’t get over the crux and its getting dark. While abseiling off the route your ropes also get stuck and when you eventually get to the end of Savage Arete in Tremadog you discover that one of the party had a headtorch in her bag all along. But having it would have spoiled the perfect moonlight and the epic and you definitely have to go through a good epic every now and again. Mind you, a stuck rope is always better than actually leaving one of your ropes at the top of the crag. Those routes that you abseil into and must climb out of certainly have an extra spice and waiting hopefully for someone to pop their head over the top of Great Balls of Fire in the Ailladie, teaches you the lesson of remembering both your ropes very quickly. Not long after forgetting the rope, we had to break into a car, Peter having dropped his keys in the Atlantic Ocean.

Above: Leading Great Balls of Fire (HVS 5a) and
Below: On Jug City (VS 4c) in the Burren.

While talking to other climbers after finishing a route, I am often struck by how clearly many of them can remember their every move. They can recall exactly where their right hand was at any time and what direction they had to shift their weight in so as to get over the crux. My mind and body never records that information very clearly. I can remember things like I dropped a nut there or I gave the tree at the top of Thrust a big hug but not how good a finger jam I had on that last narrow crack. Nonetheless certain moments do get burnt into your memory. I will never forget those few moments while I scratched my way over the unprotected crux of Pilaster in Dalkey. Grabbing for one key hold on Tramp, sneaking around the nose on Graham Crackers, those few thin moves the first time I led Speirbhean and angling up that off width crack on Harvest Moon in Coumshingaun are all moments in my top ten climbing memories. They are the good memories of course – the more troubling ones get erased.

Above: At the crux of Speirbhean (VS 4c) at Glendalough.

I rented King Arthur on DVD just to see if the stars of the film would be running around trying to escape the midgets. They had done some of the filming at Lough Tay and Luggala, which is also a dramatic and interesting place to climb. This is a crag that demands very well developed guidebook and topo deciphering skills. There are ten distinct climbing areas separated by all sorts of different tiers, gullys and ledges.

Above: Paul at Luggala with the Pine Tree Buttress far below.

But from Pine Tree Buttress, you just have to make for the Great Roof which is as much a part of the Irish climbing experience as the midgets that would follow. Claideamh Solais allows you to exit from the roof to the left while the exhilarating hand traverse on Spearhead allows you to escape the roof to its right. Amongst the slabs at the top of that particular route, the midgets attacked. Belaying properly and patiently while they crawl all over you is intensely difficult. They are inescapable and could drive you to leap from the cliff. It’s a superb place to climb but that afternoon we had to run off the mountain.

Above: Escaping from the Great Roof at Luggala.
Below: The incredible climbing setting of Luggala in Co. Wicklow.

The early escape led us to seek out some routes on a crag called the Bishop, a strange rock pinnacle in Dunran Glen not far from Roundwood. I kept expecting to find a dead body while approaching it through the stuffy forest. There was too much loose rock around for my liking but the place left the impression that you had been climbing somewhere really weird. The owner of the campsite in Roundwood didn’t like the look of us yet again, so we decided to drive across to the scout campsite at Larch Hill. Driving anywhere after a day’s climbing needs to be done with great care. Climbing and the kind of driving you can do in the darkness on the wild country roads of the Wicklow mountains while listening to the hard dance music of Lisa Lashes are definitely a perilous combination.

Above: On Gold N Topsy at Knockadoon, Youghal, Co. Cork and
Below: A November evening's view from Knockadoon.

Seeing a kestrel hovering and then swooping down to rip into its misfortunate prey was magnificent entertainment while belaying on Cracks on the Garden of Eden in Glendalough. Climbing Sarcophagus, a tough HVS with a big reputation had been on my mind for a long time and there was nothing for it that day but to present ourselves at the bottom of it and give it a go. It was a warm day in the middle of March and we flew up the route. John led the crux pitch and got up it superbly and I promised myself that I would be back for a repeat. Not long after he found himself armwrestling the Wicklow born owner of the farm/campsite in Ogwen in North Wales. There was no beating him but two great days climbing at Carreg Wastad and Dinas Cromlech made up for that defeat. Just ten minutes from the carparks in the Llanberis pass is an incredible selection of superb quality climbs and plenty that even we could climb. The rhythm of the climbing on routes like Noah’s Warning was unforgettable. We also stood beneath Cenotaph Corner and looked up longingly. Someday.

Above: On the final pitch of Flying Buttress (V Diff) in Llanberis.

Discovering the climbing wall in the village of Rathgormack in County Waterford had made us far better climbers and led us to a thorough exploration of the world of indoor climbing. The amount of moulded plastic holds or the height of the wall are not the important factors – it’s the other climbers that make it worthwhile. You can also give moves a try that so far I would never imagine doing while outside on the rock. I certainly never intend repeating my dramatic fall off the top of the very high up overhang at Mardyke in Cork. The astonished look on the faces of the children who were gearing up beneath me was priceless however. Taking part in the Irish Bouldering League was an inevitable progression. Being jammed into a small place place with a hundred other climbers will make you try anything. When so many people are cheering you on before you lunge for a finishing hold, you have no choice but to go for it and you might just get it. Even if you career backwards and land between a mass of bodies in a cloud of chalk, it is hard to be too annoyed at yourself.

Above: Kenneth Rouse on Ground Control (HVS 5a) in the Burren.

It’s sometimes hard to know whether the grading of climbs is there to keep you safe or to tempt you on to try something that little bit harder. As a climber in the lower to middle grades, you have to prescribe to the theory that it is not the grade of the climb that matters but the challenge and enjoyment you get out of whatever route you are on but that still tests your ability. Nonetheless it is a nice feeling to be climbing lots of HVSs this year when you were climbing lots of VSs last year. It is E1 that seems to be a kind of mysterious marker however. There are those who seem to be able to climb at this grade not long after starting climbing. Leading it is another matter and for me it had taken quite some time to get that far. Ballykeeffe Quarry in County Kilkenny has lots of bolts and great routes thanks to the tireless work of Gerry Fogg and company and while the bats circled over head, I finally got up an E1 called The Hens Nest. It was short and there was a bolt but it was tricky and a good start. Bushmills in Dalkey was more strenuous and felt much more like it. I had once thought that I would never do it but finally, there I was belaying at the top of it.

Above: At the crux of Lot's Escape (HVS 5a) at Bunmahon in Co. Waterford.

Climbing is full of history, most of which has already been written or so I thought. While struggling on Pilaster one day, Joss Lynam dropped down the gully to the left of the route to give us some encouragement and remarked that he too had found it tough in his day. For me it was great to meet one of the legends of Irish climbing. Another great experience was meeting the indefatigable Gerry Moss. Apparently he has slowed down a bit after a health scare but over a year and in between trips to Croatia and all over Ireland and Wales, he has been involved in the putting up of about forty new routes at Knockadoon in Youghal. Here is someone who has never wasted a minute and still doesn’t and continues to discover great new crags.

Above: Peter Britton leads Crosseyed and Painless (VS 4c) at Foill an Priosun in the Comeraghs.

I had already experienced some new routing at Crottys in the Comeraghs with Peter Britton. I had been fortunate to second him on the first ascents of Pound Out and Drop the Penny, great routes that he had literally dug out of a cliff. A day hanging off a cliff with a shovel in your hand while struggling up and down a rope with jumars is an experience in itself. Therefore, when I was presented with a nice clean unclimbed crack at Knockadoon I had to go for it. It was short but challenging and knowing that you are the first to have climbed it was a great feeling. There’s no worrying about the grade, you just have to ask yourself there’s the route - can you climb it? Yet another unclimbed crack at the same crag some time later was a bit more touch and go and at the absolute limit of what I could climb at that point but I got through it. They’ll never be classics but it is nice to think that at some point in the future somebody will give their guidebook a last minute read and before starting up the route will notice that you were the first person to ever pull yourself over the top on that particular small piece of rock.

Above: Climber on Western Pride (E2 5c) at Ailladie in the Burren

Having someone to come up that piece of rock behind you is very important. A good climbing partner is one who does not mind spending half an hour freeing your badly placed friend or illogically jammed nut. Sometimes they will even free gear that’s not yours and John’s finest achievement in this area was defying all the laws of physics to retrieve an old in situ hex from a gully in Scotland that must have been there for at least ten years. From belaying you on harder single pitch climbs, to long multi piches to Scottish gullies to seldom climbed alpine routes the amount of trust you need to have in that person is considerable. You basically must trust that person with your life and they have to trust you with theirs. You need someone who can tell you ‘of course you can climb that’ or ‘of course you can’t climb that’.

Above: Mick Walsh on Hell's Kitchen (HVS 5a) at the unsurpassable Fair Head.

Other skills to watch out for is the ability to repair hopelessly broken MSR stoves and an actual understanding of how an internal combustion engine works. The ability to follow a roadmap and notice critical roadsigns is always invaluable along with not minding when you are on the wrong side of the country and have to be back in work in about eight hours. A compatible personality for when you are rained into a tent, which is far too small, is essential. If you occasionally feel like sticking an ice axe into someone’s head when they are talking to you, you should probably not tie into the other end of a rope with them. But by far the most important attribute is someone who does not mind when you make a complete mess of things and someone who keeps thinking when everything is or seems to be going wrong.

Above: Paul McSweeney at the thoughtful move on Forest Rhapsody at Glendalough.

Fortunately, things go right most of the time. Once you have learned the important safety rules, you have to climb a load of routes and make lots of mistakes to learn all of the other essential things that you must know. Try not to learn about helmets the hard way because climbers above you will always drop gear in your direction and if you fall without one on, you will surely land on your head. Remember that your car is for driving so drive it and when you look over the cliff at the spectacular Fairhead in the cold and wet and you can climb nothing, you will still be glad you are there. Get lots of cod liver oil, glucosamine and calcium into you – it can’t do any harm. Climb in as many different places as you can and you’ll be amazed at where you will find good nightclubs. Finally remember that the climbing that you do only matters to yourself. Everybody likes to have climbed a route but it’s not as important as actually climbing it. What I am looking forward to now is my third attempt on that gully at Coumtay. I just might be ready for it.

Above: An outstanding view of the climbing arena at Ailladie in the Burren.
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