Dubliner conquers Donegal sea stack in memory of mountaineer father

As solstices go, this midsummer one was particularly special for Niamh Gaffney.

The 43-year-old Dublin mother of two braved an Atlantic swell and a hazardous climb up a Donegal sea stack yesterday in memory of her father, who lost his life to mountaineering almost 17 years ago.

Eddie Gaffney was one of the pioneers of Irish rock climbing in the 1960s and a keen hillwalker, marathon runner and orienteer.

He was just 53 when he had a fatal fall, after completing a solo ascent of Monte Disgrazia in the Swiss alpine Bregaglia range in August 1996.

For as long as she remembers, her father had always wanted to climb sea stacks off the Irish Atlantic coastline, but had never made it due to his fear of water and boats.

And so she nurtured an ambition to fulfil her father’s wish. “However, a fear of falling kept my feet on the ground until 2010,” she said.

Three years ago, the first aid training company owner and journalist overcame that fear with the help of one of her father's climbing colleagues, Gerry Moss, who had recorded first ascents of many crags around Ireland.

“From the moment my hands and feet were on rock, I knew it was in my blood and I was addicted,” she says.

She trained with Moss in Glendalough, Co Wicklow, and one of her first goals was to complete the route known as "Celia", named after her mother. It was first climbed by a team that included her dad and Emmet Goulding in 1963.

Iain Miller, who assisted Gaffney yesterday in her attempt on the stack known as Brístí, so named due to its "trousers" shape, near Maghery, has been tackling some 70 previously unclimbed sea stacks off the northwest coast since 2007.

“Atmospheric and adventurous” is how he describes the climbs, which he believes to be of “world-class” standard in a relatively small geographical area of the planet.

“It is safe to say that more people have stood on the moon than have stood on the summits of Donegal’s sea stacks,” Miller says.

One of those routes has now been named Ned Gaffney’s Perch, following Niamh’s 30 metre (120ft) ascent which took just an hour.

“The landing by boat in a four-metre swell was by far the most stressful bit,”she says.

After her safe descent yesterday, she was planning to contact her mother, Celia, and her two children, Aoife (22) and Ronan (20), who have both emigrated to Canada in the past year.

“I didn’t actually tell my mother what I was doing beforehand,” she says. “I’d better tell her now!”