Roll out the International Year of the Mountains (2002), roll in another Everest year. Already the British press is gearing up for the 50th anniversary of that successful ascent by Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary; but 2003 also marks the 80th anniversary of the first attempt on the mountain, and it is now a decade since the first successful Irish climb.
It was 10.07 a.m. on May 27th, 1993 when the Belfast architect and mountain guide Dawson Stelfox held out his camera and took a crooked photograph of himself on the summit, then communicated his position by radio to his fellow team members down below.
"Bhris rabharta áthais anuas ar an bpuball, screadáil is béicíl," fellow climber, Dermot Somers, recalls. "Éireannaigh, Neipealaigh, Tibéadaigh ag pocléimnigh is ag rince." And surely they were "ag pocléimnigh" - Nepalese, Tibetans and Irish bouncing about at the 17,000-foot high base camp in sheer, unadulterated delight.
Prize-winning memoir
He may grimace at my "popular" selection, but these moments are vividly recalled by Somers in his recently published memoir Rince ar na Ballaí, which was a prizewinner in the current Oireachtas Literary Awards. The author recalls how he was so overcome by the drama of the occasion that he broke out in Irish on radio.
The Belfastman listened to him politely from the summit, not understanding a word of what he said, yet knowing that the sentiments came from the heart. As Somers notes with wry humour, there was no doubt that Stelfox had the added distinction of being the "highest listener ever" to the Irish language.
Everest and that highly risky, but successful, attempt on the mountain's North Ridge in the footsteps of Mallory and Irvine is subject of the final chapter in Somers's account, published late last year by Cois Life. However, his life and times on the Alps and the Himalaya in the company of fellow climbers is the main theme of the memoir, which starts out on a rockface with a quip to a colleague about what to do if he should fall. . .
Somers, a teacher and diver in past lives and originally from Co Roscommon, came to climbing relatively late, but has a series of mountaineering accomplishments, including Irish "firsts" on the Eiger and Matterhorn. Yet for all his achievements, his memoir repeatedly disabuses the reader of any notion that he takes life too seriously. At this point, I must declare an interest. I know this not because of any great command of the Irish language, but because I have been in his company on many occasions.
The first time was at Everest base camp after this newspaper, as an expedition sponsor, decided to send a journalist to report on the expedition's progress. Some of the climbers feared that the ghoulish press might feel a death or two was required to make the story more worthwhile, but as Somers makes clear in his book, he understood the real state of affairs: I was afraid myself of of being consumed by angry team members if things went badly wrong. Also, I was aware of the scapegoating of a Sunday newspaper journalist assigned to an unhappy Chris Bonington expedition .
Salt traders' caravan
Not all of the text is rooted on the slopes of high and awkward mountains. Somers also describes his experiences in the Sahara with the Tuareg people of northern Niger, when he joined a caravan of salt traders for a television documentary.
Caoilfhionn Nic Pháidín of Cois Life says she can almost hear him speak through the paragraphs. His "authentic, uncompromising" voice is already well known through his programmes for TG4, which have been re-broadcast on RTÉ.
In his recreation of the landscape he is not one to waste a glimpse, a moment - and in his "críoch", he has the last word on the circus that one big mountain has become.
Rince ar na Ballaí by Dermot Somers is available in all good bookshops for €25 or direct from Cois Life at www.coislife.ie )
Everest events
Several events have been marked on this year's calendar to celebrate Everest ascents. Corkman Pat Falvey, who climbed the South Col route and is still being erroneously described in local press as the first Irishman to reach the summit, is returning later this year with several ambitious targets. 1993 Everest expedition members and trekkers are marking the tenth birthday of that climb with a reunion in Connemara in May. And a trek to Tibet is taking place in September, led by mountain guide Robbie Fenlon, who was one of the 1993 mountaineering team. For more details on that, contact www.wilderplaces.com or phone 01-2872910.
Kilkenny and Belfast have been the first venues in a series of talks-cum-slideshows hosted by the Mountaineering Council of Ireland. The talks are being given by Dawson Stelfox and his deputy expedition leader, Frank Nugent, and proceeds are going to the Irish Himalayan Trust. Further locations are Limerick Institute of Technology, tonight at 8 p.m.; Derry on February 12th; Dublin on February 26th; Castlebar, Co Mayo, on March 6th; Cork on March 27th; and Tralee, Co Kerry, on March 28th.