"Croagh Patrick +++ Irelands Holy Mountain" Top 5 Page for this destination County Mayo Travelogue by sabsi

This was our first view of Ireland's holy mountain, Croagh Patrick or "The Reek".

It's only 765 meters high but it definitely looks higher than that. Plus it looks rather strange because there's no trees or anything - and a white chapel on the top. A very unusual sight I think!

Anyway, this is place where St. Patrick is said to have banished the snakes from Ireland when he was doing his 40 days fast on the summit. To this day snakes do not exist in Ireland!

The chapel was build in 1905 and since then there took place four weddings and one funeral (Heard this one before ;-) up there.

Pilgrimages have been carried out to the summit for a very long time. A lot of people climbed the mountain barefoot!!! Dates for this have changed since 1974.

The main pilgriage date does not take place on St. Patrick's day anymore (it was too dangerous in the wet and misty March weather). It isn't performed at nights anymore because that also became too dangerous!

Nowadays there are three days in summer when there are services available on the summit:
Reek Sunday (last sunday in July)
Garland Friday (last friday in July)
Feast of the Assumption (14 August).

Manual

This is at the bottom of the mountain. It's the manual of the stations pilgrims have to do. To be honest I found it rather amusing - but I met many people there who took it very seriously which was nice!

Anyway, let me tell you about the stations of the reek (Taken from the official "manual").

First Station:

Leacht Benain (named after St. Patrick's disciple Benignus) is at the base of the cone, sonsisting of a small, circular cairn of stones. The pilgrim walks around it seven times and says seven Our Fathers, seven Hail Marys and one Creed.

Second Station:

On reaching the summit, the pilgrim enters the second station of the Reek by kneeling and saying seven Our Fathers, seven Hail Marys and one Creed.

After praying for the Pope's intention near the chapel, the pilgrim then walks fifteen times round the church in a clockwise direction saying fifteen Our Fathers, fifteen Hail Marys and one Creed.

Leaba Phádraig (Patrick's Bed) is the conclusion of the second station. Here pilgrims walk around seven times, saying seven Our Fathers, seven Hail Marys and one Creed.

Third Station:

Roilig Mhuire (Virgin's Cemetary) is some distance down the western side of the mountain. Here there are three cairns of stones, and the pilgrim walks arounf each cairn, saying seven Our Fathers, seven Hail Marys and one Creed and finally goes round the whole enclosure seven times praying. Roilig Mhuire os also known as Garraí Mór (big Garden) and is probably a pre Christian grave.

Provisions

I took this from the official Croagh Patrick brochure I got. As it's inportant I thought I'd copy it for you!

It is advisable to take the following with you when climbing the mountain - sturdy footwear, rainwear and some drinking water. it is also advisable to leave an expected time of return with someone at ground level. Climbing Patrick normally takes two hours for the average person and allow one and a half hour to descend.</font>

Country Code

Please keep Croagh Patrick tiday and help by taking off other litter you may find. Keep all gates passed through closed. Stick to the path to avoid unnecessary destruction. Do not remove stones from the summit as this is a very ancient and sacred landscape.

St. Patrick

This statue is also at the bottom of the mountain.

I met a lot of older people here that came here for a prayer (they walked around the statue while praying!).

Talking to a few of them I found that they wouldn't go all the way up anyway because of the pain! Some told me about all the miracles that happened here, another man told me that he used to climb the mountain and even did one of the stations once and crawled around the chapel three times on his knees... And he died laughing when I told him it sounds like a "children's birthday" to me!

But I didn't find anyone who climbed the whole thing on bare feet...

St Patrick overlooking Clew Bay

If the view from a few steps higher than the car park is this lovely - how wonderful does it have to be from the top? Well I thought I could find it out...

I heard a few stories about the mountain and I thought the hike would be bad - but I didn't know that it was that bad...

Colm at the start of our adventure

It's steep in the beginning alright! And it's tiring to walk up a path which basically consists of stones... But the view gets nicer and in the beginning it all seems like it would stay like this and that you'd get used to it. Here's what McCarthy - our steady book companion & guide wrote about this bit:

"The path rises sharply from the statue of St Patrick at the foot of the mountain. I'm trying to walk off the heart attack, but so far it's not working. It's be a nightmare doing this barefoot, with all these jagged rock.I wonder if the pilgrims cheat and go on the grassy bits at the side, or do they stick to the stones and shale, on account of God being omniscient?"

The path

Hmm well it got worse. We got used to walking but the path got steeper and more and more crazy the more tired we got. Well the more tired I got because Colm still looked like he could break the record of 44 minutes for going up AND down!

The path

Unfortunately the picture don't give justice to the nightmare. It doesn't look steep at all, and it's hard to explain someone who never has been here why I had to give up half way.

Colm on the way up

Because I got tired I started sliding a lot and looking up I saw people coming down on their bums because we were approaching the steepest part. That's when I decided to send Colm up (I thought he'd be back in no time ;-). So I turned around...

Clew Bay from Croagh Patrick

This is the highest I got and I think the view was worth every bit of sweat and pain!!! It must be amazing from the top - Colm's pictures from there were amazing. I post them here - even though I wasn't up there, ok?

He didn't come down after almost 3 hours later, anyway. I waited in the visitor centre, had a cold drink, anice meal, a book and a lovely tea with a few old ladies and a nun ("Love, there's nothing worse than to waist a good tea, get yourself a cup").

Back on the carpark I met even more people...

One woman was dying for a cigarette as she had left hers in the car (somehow everyone seems to leave his fags in the car because it would be too tempting on the way and it would kill ya ;)... so I gave her one and she was the happiest person around!

Two Northern Irish women arrived with their high heel sandals and asked whether they could climb the mountain like that. When I said it's a nightmare one asked whether she could have my shoes HAHA...

Very amusing!