Conquering the Reek - Westport, Ireland

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Conquering the Reek

Westport, Ireland


I'm going to attempt to write about my Croagh Patrick experience although words will never do it justice. You will never know what it is like to climb this massive mountain of belief and pilgrimage until you actually do it, and in retrospect I'm not sure I really recommend doing that. However, the accomplishment you feel is worth the arduous climb. If you had asked me yesterday, while I was on the mountain, I would have said it was something I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy. But if you're up for a challenge or to get in tune with your possibly hidden or forgotten religious side, go up north to County Mayo and trek up this mountain.

St. Patrick spent 40 days and nights on the peak of Croagh Patrick and drove all of the snakes from Ireland—to this day there has not been a snake found in Ireland. The mountain is 765 meters high and for penance, on the last Sunday in July (Reek Sunday), pilgrims climb Croagh Patrick, some in bare feet. Most people start the climb by Campbell's pub in the town of Murrisk.

I wore sneakers but if you have hiking boots they would be easier on your feet, although, as I said before, people have been known to climb barefoot for religious reasons (or on a bet). Also, bring lots of water and a walking stick—and maybe some breadcrumbs and a chauffeur.

My day started by waking up in my my B&B, the Cedar Lodge, in Westport, County Mayo. I sat in the dining room, eating the delicious breakfast my hostess, Maureen, made for me, with a German couple and an American woman with her parents (her father being first generation Irish, accent intact). I told them all I was climbing Croagh Patrick. At that point I had no idea what I was in for, the Americans had no idea what I was talking about, and the Germans looked at me like I had three heads—I guess they knew what I was in for. Maureen, the liar, said it was a "lovely climb."

I went into town after breakfast and hopped on the 11:15 bus with one other woman. When I told her and the bus driver I was going to climb the Reek, they simultaneously started giving me tips for the entire 20-minute bus ride. They actually were making me a bit nervous, telling me things like "don't walk alone" and "tell the people at the pub at the bottom what time they should expect you back so if you don't return they'll know something has happened". They also thought it would be nice to tell me all of the stories of people who died climbing it. Not very comforting, but I think they meant well. The bus driver must have said, "I don't mean to scare you" about twenty times. He claimed he had climbed it ten times and the woman said she and her family had gone once a year until she developed a bad back.

They dropped me off and pointed me in the right direction. I was grateful to see public toilets in the car park and an Information Center, which has managed not to become too touristy, where I bought an extra bottle of water just in case. I started getting a little worried when I was out of breath even before reaching the official starting point, which was a statue of Saint Patrick himself. I'm sure they put it at the bottom so less foolish people could take pictures of themselves at the bottom to prove they had been there without actually climbing the damn thing. Two elderly people insisted on taking my picture a few times before they cheerfully sent me on my way—cheerfully because they weren't going any further.

After the first five minutes, I caught up with an older man from Long Island named Jim, who had intelligently brought along a walking stick, and he became my walking companion. We both naively thought that the first thirty minute stretch just had to be the hardest part—no trail to speak of—just a bunch of rocks, most of them loose, on the side of the mountain. We passed a stream, presumably the one the bus driver had told me to stick my feet in on the way down to heal them—and continued to make our way through the rocks. I did not notice much wildlife—birds, bugs, etc.—I guess they were all smarter than we were.

After stopping for a couple of water breaks, Jim and I saw some fellow pilgrims in the distance. It seemed as though they had stopped to rest and were waiting for us to catch up as they kept yelling and waving in our direction. I waved back and soon we were sitting on makeshift stone seats with four other people—one couple and two Irish men climbing together—one man in his late 50s and the other in his 20s. They were Charlie and Cathal, respectively, and little did I know how these two men would give me one of the most interesting and somewhat scary days in my life.

The couple decided to end their rest earlier than we did and headed off. A few minutes later Jim decided to go on and I, being his constant companion, followed him along with Charlie and Cathal, with Charlie beginning a rhetoric that would continue until I left him later that day. Charlie, being a liar like Maureen, told Jim and I that we were "nearly there". After another thirty odd minutes of vertical climbing we thankfully came to a flat patch of rocks where the wind whipped around us and Clew Bay and its islands were visible in the distance. According to Charlie, his friend George, a veteran (of which war I have no idea), lived on one of those islands with his wife and his boat, which none of us could see from there except Charlie.

After that flat stretch we could see the peak of the mountain right in front of us. I said, extremely prematurely, that it didn't look so bad! God obviously heard me and decided to teach me a lesson at this point. The last bit of mountain took another hour to climb—an hour of pure torture. An hour that made me pine for the easy little "lanes" we had been through before. This last hour consisted of a trail of loose rocks with nothing to hold on to and nothing to stop you from falling off the side into the Bay below. I was terrified. There wasn't even any place to stop and rest unless you wanted to slide back down from where you came. Soon, our party was split up, with Cathal in front, Charlie behind him, and Jim and I bringing up the rear. At every turn that we thought was the top, the mountain just kept getting higher and higher. My mind went blank and void of all thoughts except not to fall until finally I saw the chapel—the little white chapel at the top. I've never been more thankful to see a religious place of worship before in my life.

As I reached the top, I looked around me and first felt relief and accomplishment. I had done the physically most challenging thing in my life. And just to set the record straight, I am not a physical person—I don't exercise, I can't run, I can barely bike and walk up hills. But I had climbed three miles straight up through rocks risking my life and for what? Why had I done this? Well, for one thing I was bored of the town I was staying in. It also sounded romantic.

Those were my reasons at the bottom of the mountain. At the top, I discovered new reasons. Self-discovery was one. Getting back in touch with my religion that I had forgotten and put on the back burner of my priorities for years was another. Doing something that would make my grandparents proud of me. I did it for the sheer simplicity of it—just a mountain and God and me, battling it out as I climbed and crawled and prayed and felt as though I was so much closer to Him than I ever was or will be as a living person. And my fellow climbers, who were total strangers, had encouraged and helped me achieve this goal. If it wasn't for Jim, Charlie, and Cathal, I probably would have given up and gone back down after not even climbing half way up.

A mass was being said in the tiny chapel and college-aged men were packed into and spilling out of it as they listened to the priest encourage them to pray and be thankful for the journey they were on. I listed for a few minutes and then realized that the people of Ireland, even though the young people run around with cell phones and designer clothes, are still grounded in their strong history and religious beliefs. I felt bonded with these people as I stood in the doorway and listened. Before I knew it, the three men were heading back down and I used my common sense, maybe for the first time today, and joined them. I was not looking forward to the second half of this trek and at this time I firmly believed in strength and safety in numbers.

The way down the Reek was not any easier than the way up. Although it wasn't the type of physical workout that caused me to lose my breath, it was hard on my feet and legs as I struggled not to lose my footing on the piles of loose rock. I must have slipped at least five times but regained my footing with dignity as others fell around me left and right. I did not have control over my feet until I saw the wonderful sight of St. Patrick again, greeting and congratulating us at the bottom. Jim was long gone by now. He and his stick had set off at an alarming and inspiring rate so I was left with Charlie and Cathal as we went into the coffee shop at the information center. I was in good spirits at this point, as I had accomplished something fantastic, not to mention Cathal and Charlie had just told me how surprised they were that I had actually made it all the way up and down. They thought American women were weak and soft and they held me in the utmost respect for being so tough and displaying my "Irish spirit and blood".

I was treated to two cups of coffee and surprising stories about the Troubles in Northern Ireland. I was in the presence, I soon realized, of two English-hating, IRA-supporting men who told me personal accounts of the British army invading their homes in County Down and shooting people in the street. Charlie told me of a time, twenty years ago, when there was a knock on his door. Supposedly he was taken into custody by the British army. They put a cloth over his head so he couldn't see where they were taking him and only took it off so he could sign his name and look at the pictures they showed him of known IRA members. He said he knew every one of them but lied so well about it they let him go. Their way of "releasing him from custody" was to throw him out of a van on the side of the road. This was just one of the accounts of the Troubles that I heard that day. They also told me of a man they knew who was hunted carefully by the police. Supposedly he was a fine marksman who phoned the police every day and said, "I'm gonna kill one of ya' t'night" and always did.

By the time we had finished our coffee and story telling it was 4:30 and they insisted on giving me a lift back to Westport, and since my bus wasn't for another hour (or more, depending on Irish time), and I hadn't done enough idiotic things that day, I accepted. Before we got into the car, Charlie wanted to show me the famine monument near the car park. This monument, made of iron, was erected in 1997 and made by a local artist. It was sobering, to say the least—a boat, almost life-sized, and surrounded by intertwined skeleton sculptures. The skeletons seemed to be flying in the air above the boat and along its sides, maybe to a far better place than where they were from and where they were going. Maybe they were going to guide the pilgrims up the Reek. The point of this monument was not subtle. It symbolized all of the Irish who died in the Potato Famine and on all of the ships on their way to other countries. Charlie took my picture next to it as I placed my hand on one of the skeletons—morbid, I know, but the feeling came over me that I had to do it.

The three of us got into Charlie's car. I was looking forward to getting back to Westport, showering, eating, and sleeping. But no, with Charlie it wasn't that simple. He pointed out the house of one of the hundreds of people he's friends with and wouldn't you know he drove up for a "short visit". This is when I started to get a little uneasy. His friend, Herbert, was a naval captain and his wife, Sally, was the cook on his boat. Only Sally was at home when we arrived and she was very scary. Every other word out of her mouth was "fookin" and I don't think she smiled once in our "short" two-hour (yes, two-hour) visit.

Their house, or "typical Irish cottage" as Cathal put it, was the most filthy, smelly, and overall disgusting home I have ever been in. I timidly sat next to Charlie (where he ordered me to sit) as Sally went off to make some tea. She came back with, surprisingly, very delicious and clean looking sandwiches. Had she just made these? Were they from the store? I didn't know and didn't care as it was 5:00 and the last thing I had eaten was breakfast at 9:00 and had just climbed up and down a three-mile high mountain. Charlie kept ordering me to eat and I did whatever Charlie told me to do.

We chatted with Sally until Herbert arrived. He was a large man, possibly of German descent (I couldn't place the accent), resembling Santa Claus and a bit less scary than Sally. As we ate our sandwiches and drank our tea, I listened to Charlie recount the most alarming sequence of events. Since this was the first time I heard what was obviously a well-known situation by everyone else, I only got a general idea of what was going on. Supposedly, Charlie had recently been arrested because a taxi driver saw a bomb fall out of his pocket and then a building had been burned soon after. So Charlie was awaiting a trial where he was being charged for arson and could get ten years to life in prison. That's the extremely brief version of a long story that also involved Charlie's ten-year-old daughter and a crime that had been committed against her. So I sat there for two hours as Charlie told that story over and over while Sally kept interjecting with "fookin eejits" (this is also what she called the three of us when we told her we had just climbed the Reek).

We finally left that awful home, although we were sent off by Herbert and Sally very brilliantly and lovingly, and on the drive back to Westport we drove through the grounds of a "damned English lord". Charlie wanted me to see where the English lived while the Irish were homeless and starving. They dropped me off at the Octagon in the center of town after I gave them my address in the U.S. so we could write and asked them to let me know how everything turned out for them. They told me to bring my mom back to meet them when she was here, and were sure that she was "just as lovely and tough as I was".

I checked my email at Dunnings Pub and got something to eat there—good old Irish stew. As I sat there I realized I could barely lift the food into my mouth and swallow it because of how physically exhausted I was. I trudged back to my B&B, gave Maureen a brief account of my day, was showered and pajamaed by 9:00, and was safely in bed by 10:00.

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