An Irishman’s Diary on the pleasures and perils of walking

As I headed for the hills, the Garda car arrived. Through the window the driver mentioned a text alert about a car behaving suspiciously. "Had I noticed anything?" Ever a supporter of order, I was glad to offer reassurance. "Actually, I've been driving around myself looking for a trailhead", I assured her, "and certainly there wasn't another car." With furrowed brow she next inquired, "What is it you're up to then?" This provided my golden opportunity. "I'm heading for a ramble in the hills and then I'm going to write about it in The Irish Times."

She seemed disappointingly unmoved by this revelation, while I had a distinct impression her companion raised his eyes to heaven before remarking, “Nothing to see here, let’s go.”

Then, I was alone again and free to pursue my epic journalistic quest to uncover the truth about Ireland's uplands. Almost seven years of this endeavour has now resulted in the imminent publication of my 100th walking article for The Irish Times.

It all began when the editor of the travel magazine requested I submit some pieces on Ireland’s best walks. Of course I jumped at this. After all, I been had been rambling the Irish hills for almost 25 years so obviously it was just a question of finding a comfortable armchair to write up my favourite walks and then waiting for the cheques to roll in.

It didn’t, however, turn out this way. Being familiar with a route is one thing, becoming conversant enough to write authoritatively about it is quite another. Some detail or feature always escaped me. Having to actually walk the walks brought the bonus, however, of experiencing the incredible variety of scenery crammed into our tiny island. From the Antrim basalts to the old sandstones of Kerry and from the igneous rocks of Donegal to the Burren karstlands, there always seemed to be a new and breathtaking reward around the corner.

Of course, there was a price. I got soaked innumerable times, fell into a couple of bog holes, became benighted in a forest and was chased by cattle, dogs and sheep.

This latter revelation almost invariably begs another question. “Were you ever chased by an angry landowner?”

The answer, which may astonish some, is a definitive no. Such problems seem to occur more frequently in Scotland, despite it being trumpeted as an international model for countryside access. There, I have been witness to confrontations about access to ski slopes, disturbing deer and allegedly putting grouse to flight.

In Ireland, there is no Scottish-style access right to the countryside. Yet, a generous live-and-let-live atmosphere mostly prevails. Once we respect the Irish landscape as a dual-purpose environment, landowners are, by and large, both friendly and helpful. They have assisted me with directions, snippets of local history, farmyard parking and on an occasion my car got stuck, a tractor tow was provided for which no payment was accepted. And when I assembled some of my rambles into a book titled Tipperary and Waterford – A Walking Guide, IFA president John Bryan gave generously of his time to launch the volume.

The real problem in the Irish countryside is not lack of access, but rapid economic decline. And it isn’t just pubs that have become a rural rarity. In village after village there were depressingly sad rows of derelict buildings that in times past housed shops, banks, post offices, Garda stations and local creameries that once backboned the local economies. Areas where I kept bumping into tourists were, however, a notable exception. Here and there, it was still possible to do what urban dwellers take for granted – buy a newspaper, fill up with diesel or find a pub serving food. The disproportionate value of tourism for rural communities continually struck me forcibly and reinforced my belief that tourism is the key to regenerating the Irish countryside.

But even in the most remote areas, the indomitable spirit of rural people is still apparent. Small co-operative cafés and shops are emerging to replace lost services. Local groups are developing hostels, climbing walls, pilgrim paths and outdoor centres as agents of economic renewal, while local food brands are thriving. Solidarity and cohesiveness – which, in my experience occur much more rarely in urban settings – are what stood out for me as the great strengths of Ireland’s rural communities. Truly valuable, it is worth striving to preserve for, downturn or not, there is still nowhere to quite compare with the Irish countryside.