An sho, once more unto the beach,

It has been an outstanding year with a shade over 300 days of play out in County Donegal in the distant north west in the Republic of Ireland. With most of these days out being in the company of visitors to the from over 20 different countries.
A perhaps strange statistic to bear in mind, more US and Canadian troops have tickled the realms on a nautical summit than Irish troopers.

In furtherance to the outer realms with solo visits to The Stags of Owey, Roan Inish and The Stags of Broadhaven this year but it was in June that the royal we looked into the abyss beyond the outer Realms. A freesolo of Cnoc na Mara was always the original intent with this sea stack and combining this with a paddle to and from An Port road end made the whole experience a bit of a mindblower.

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Cnoc na Mara information

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http://www.uniqueascent.ie/stag_rocks_owey_island




Whilst not tickling the underside of foolish in the vestibule to Davy Jones Locker it would have been rude not to revisit the established classics in the county.

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Ireland's largest mountain crag faces due north and lives in the Poisoned Glen and alas, for the last few decades it has been pretty much ignored. But there has at long last been a renewed interest in this long neglected crag with three teams over the last two summers cleaning and climbing new routes on the main faces.
Kevin McGee and Iain Miller climbed Micheál at E1 5b and 159 metres long on the West Buttress at the end of 2014.
During the last few years Calvin Torrans and Clare Sherridan have been busy cleaning in the Glen and have currently climbed two new routes in the most impressive location in the glen. The Streets of Laredo E4 (6a,5b) and Gallowglass E4 (5c,6a) * both climb the steep ground at the very top of the Bearnas Buttress. A swift repeat of Gallowglass in October by Kevin McGee, (P1) Pat Nolan, (P2) and Gerard O'Sullivan is perhaps an extremely good sign in the renewed interest of this long neglected crag.


After four years of living under a laptop wearing a onesie, the paper guidebook to Donegal is now finished. Rock in Climbing Donegal Guidebook 2015 With 360 pages and a tad over 1000 routes from roadside morning rumbles to the dark side of The Realms of Chaos in essence a piece of rock for every taste. It is alas a select guide to the county as there is too much rock for a single book.

A newly open location is Tororragaun Island, this is the large lump of rock living between Gola Island and Umfin Islands. It lives 3km offshore and requires a tad of nautical guile to visit Made a couple of visit out to the island this year and opened an account with five new routes on its seaward face. The online guide is Tororragaun.

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Owey Island continues to attract the super strong to its seaward walls, with new routes upto E7 (5.13 ish?) being climbed above Neptune. The previous years routes of the Holy Jaysus wall have had several repeats from both Irish and UK visitors. This is pretty much unheard of, swift repeats of hard lines on an obscure Irish Island. Hurray for the mighty social media and off course, immaculate previously unclimbed rock. :-) This is the free Owey Island guide

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Anyways, as always it continues to be emotional.