| THE desire to visit Clare Island hindered me on my former visit to Westport from ascending Croagh Patrick. I was determined to do so now; in fact, it was to visit this mountain and Achill that I came beyond Athlone. I remember, more than twenty years ago, seeing Croagh Patrick from the plains of Sligo, near Ballymoate. I was there for some days, and as is but too often the case in the month of August, the weather was wet, cold, and muddy, and you could not see ranges of hills or mountains five miles off; but all of a sudden, as if by magic, a change comes over the // atmosphere: up stand before you two magnificent conically formed mountains one massive and at the same time lofty, and apparently not very far off, and that I was told was Nephin; but far away to the left, blue and distinct, rose a magnificent elevation, so mathematically exact, that it might be said that nature had placed it there to work a problem in conic sections. "That's the Reek, sir," says a man that stood beside me. "What do you mean?" "Why the holy mountain of St. Patrick, where all Christhens do be goin' to do penance." "Oh I understand you, that is then Croagh Patrick, from whence the saint drove all the serpents and poisonous reptiles into the Atlantic." "You just have it," says the man, "blessed be his name for so doing." I have often seen Croagh Patrick since, but it was never until now my convenience to ascend it. I have always had a passion for ascending mountains. I never have been near one of any elevation that I did not attempt to mount his back, and I am sure I have been a fool for all my pains: the fatigue and danger, in almost every instance, overbalance the amount of knowledge or pleasure you attain. In this way I have been on Ben Nevis, on Mangerton, Helvellyn, Slieve Mis, Muckish, &c.; but there are more reasons than one for going up the REEK. It's a holy mountain. There must be, independent of the view // from it, something curious on its top. At any rate as I am now grown old, perhaps it will be a good resolve that, whether satisfied or not, I will never venture on another ascent. [pp. 306-308] |
