Cottage Academy: Freaks on The Reek

Cracking Croagh Patrick on Reek Sunday

Today is Reek Sunday, the annual day of pilgrimage up the mountain, the last Sunday in July.

I’ve climbed this mountain three times. Once as a child with my mother and siblings, when she managed to tip her handbag upside down passing Lug na nDeamhan, the Devil’s Hollow, the dark pool of boiling sulphur that pilgrims pass to their left about halfway up to the summit. It’s not actually boiling sulphur I just made that up for literary effect but I will return to Lug na nDeamhan later. In any case mother lost all the change out of her handbag and it bounced and clanged pitifully off the rocky path down toward the bottomless pool of peaty water below.

For my second ascent, I was on crutches with a broken ankle and utterly bored with the monotony of restricted movement and so took the nuclear option of going climbing. No issues on the ascent.