This article is from page 23 of the 2005-08-23 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 23 JPG
TWO budding Ennis mountain- eers scaled the heights of suc- cess recently when they trekked to the top of Croagh Patrick.
Darragh Ryan (8) and brother Ben (4) completed the climb while on a family holiday to Mayo in July.
Along with their mother Cath- erine, the two brothers braved the elements and the slippy rocky road to make it up the Pb ae
The family made the ascent on Wednesday July 27, just before the annual ‘Reek Sunday’ pil- erimage.
Darragh and Ben confounded the expectations of other walk- ers by completing the climb.
‘People were saying that we wouldn’t complete it because it was too slippy and the fact that I was on my own, it would be too much for the little lad,” explains Gr Ti etormneter
Such comments only spurred on the lads who reached the summit in two hours and fifty minutes.
Walking with the aid of their sturdy reek sticks, the boys were delighted with their achieve- ment. They made light work of
the arduous trek, with Ben even singing all the way up.
“It was great, there was no stopping them and Ben was
singing ‘Skip to my Lou my dar- ling,” said Catherine on Friday.
Catherine, who works with the Clare Sports Partnership, is a keen walker and has competed in two marathons.
A few weeks before Croagh Patrick, she had climbed Mul- laghmore.
Darragh is in 3rd class while Ben is preparing for his first year in school. Both attend Knocka- neen primary school.
This year over 20,000 people gathered in Mayo for the annual ‘Reek Sunday’ pilgrimage.
As 1s traditional, many of the pilgrims made the climb bare- foot.
This year marked the cente- nary of the church built at the top of the mountain.
Naturally Catherine is very proud of the boys, who now have their sights set on the ultimate climb.
“I thought for the two of them it was a great achievement to successfully climb the mountain so they are saying Mt Everest is next!” said Catherine.