It's the summer pilgrimage to Croagh Patrick, and there are as many people scrambling up the mountainside as on Dublin's Henry Street on a Saturday, writes PETER MURTAGH
‘ARE YOU up yet?” asked my colleague on the phone. No, I said, I was still at home, in the cottage near Louisburgh. “I’ll be leaving about 10,” I said. He was already a good part of the way up, standing just below the scree – that bloody awful angular bolder-stroon steep climb, the final assault the mountain makes on pilgrims as they struggle to reach the top of the Reek.
I’m going up the other way, I said, from the other side.
“Ah, the traditional route,” he said. Yes, I thought, the traditional route. The original route, or as near as perhaps one can get to an original route some 1,500 years after the story of Patrick began.
It is said that Patrick, sometime in the mid-5th century AD, came to Aghagower, just south of Westport in Mayo, on a mission to make Christians of the pagan Irish. From Aghagower, he went to the mountain that now bears his name. That route today forms part of the Tóchar Phadraig, the pilgrim way from Ballintubber Abbey to Croagh Patrick.
And so yesterday, Reek Sunday, the most important of the summer’s pilgrimage days to Croagh Patrick, I start my walk not from Murrisk where almost all of the day’s 20,000 plus pilgrims begin their journey, but from the Boheh Stone, a great lump of rock the size of a small van that sits sandwiched among some farm buildings just off the Westport to Leenane road.
It is hard to believe this Neolithic rock is one of the most important examples of pre-Christian rock art anywhere in Ireland or Britain. It is covered in swirling cup and ring carvings, similar to those found at Newgrange and is the only example of its kind west of the Shannon.
We can’t be sure what was in the mind of the people who made the Boheh Stone carvings some 2,000-3,000 years before Christ, but they seem to have worshipped the sun. Twice a year, on April 18th and August 24th, when viewed from the Boheh Stone, the setting sun seems to roll down the side of Croagh Patrick. Can it be coincidence that the pagans chose this place the make their carvings — and indeed that Patrick came to in order to challenge their influence? Hardly.
The Reek is about 6km to the west, a majestic mountain, its cone yesterday morning decapitated by the mist. But otherwise, it was a fine day – a fine way for a good walk.
A style, just visible amid the undergrowth beyond the stone, signals the way to go. A poorly kept path winds through Brackloon woods out into some squelchy fields, across the Leenane road and on towards the Reek.
Finger posts point the way. Their poor condition, and indeed much of the Tóchar itself, are in marked contrast to the Camino de Santiago, the Way of St James, which I walked last year with my daughter, immediately after we climbed the Reek.
In the middle of a field, a row of flag stones perhaps 100m in length indicates the way to go, a path that may be 1,000 years old or much older than that. Gradually, the land rises, the trees become sparse and sheep fill the fields as the mountain gets closer. Steep-sided gullies are home to foxgloves; meadows are littered with buttercups, purple and yellow, the colours of the late Irish summer.
A sign says the land hereabouts used to be an oak forest. Today it is bog and grass, closely chewed by sheep, rising up the side of the Reek, which remains engulfed by mist. To the south, the Shaffreys are bathed in sunlight; in between, a vast upland bog is well farmed of its turf.
A notice not far from where the Tóchar leaves the road and rises up the side of the mountain reminds readers that Reek Sunday is always the last Sunday before Lughnasa. Patrick knew what he was about coming here. “All those who worship the sun,” says the notice quoting his Confession, “shall go in misery to sore punishment. We, on the other hand, believe in and worship the true sun, Christ, who will never perish, nor will anyone who does his will.”
The climb from here is far more gentle than from Murrisk. And much more peaceful too. Only a handful of pilgrims go this way, starting at the mountain rescue base camp which was home yesterday to 11 teams of some 140 volunteers from Ireland, North and South, and four volunteers from Austria.
Not far up the mountain, the Tóchar merges with the path from Murrisk, the path laden with pilgrim hordes. The scree cone beckons, the mist which has been rubbing itself off the mountain all the way from the Boheh Stone now swallows it whole and drenches everyone.
Scrambling up the scree, there are as many people as on Dublin’s Henry Street on a Saturday afternoon. And as many accents too – most local, but many also from Northern Ireland and a noticeable number from eastern Europe.
And then a truly bizarre sight. Up ahead is a bloke carrying a 10ft tall pole with the flag of St George on it. I wonder should I tell him? Wrong mountain, mate... But it is Aivazian and he’s from Georgia. He’s with another fellow who is carrying a bright blue flag with the EU’s yellow stars in a circle and, in the middle, a sort of bright red Crusader Cross embroidered onto the flag. I asked him to explain.
“Christian Europe,” he says in a French accent. “Christian Europe,” just in case I didn’t get it first time.
Obvious, when you think about it...
I scramble on, staying at the top just long enough to get completely drenched listening to the Mass and start to make my way back down to Murrisk.
On the way, I meet Christian Europe still trying to reach the top.
“Are you with the bloke from Georgia?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says, his face a picture of enthusiasm. “You know, in Par-ees, we are in the same clube and we walk but ees only flat. Not like this.
“You Catholic Irish are tough, very tough.” “Yes,” I said, “but I’m not Catholic.” “Oh,” he says with a slight start. “But you are Irish.” “Indeed!” I said.
As I walked on down, I turned. Christian Europe was looking at me as, gradually, he vanished into the mist above me. He was quite possibly mystified as well. I do hope so.
Peter Murtagh is co-author, with his daughter Natasha Murtagh, of Buen Camino! A father-daughter journey from Croagh Patrick to Santiago de Compostela(Gill and Macmillan, 2011). Next Sunday, August 7th, at 2pm in the 53 Degrees North outlet at Carrickmines shopping centre in Co Dublin, he will be talking about the Camino and reading from the book as part of a day-long Camino information event organised by the travel company CaminoWays
