Kerry Mountain Rescue: The best of people — often working in the worst of conditions
Coimín The Kerry Lowering Setting Final Gouragh From Stretcher Up Lough Rescue: To íochtar Mountain System
Easter 1966 saw a UCD student set off alone from Killarney to ascend Ireland’s highest mountain. Tragically, he died in a fall on Carrauntoohil's east face, which was then little known and almost entirely unmapped. Soon after, a member of an English school party also died while climbing in the same area. In the absence of a local mountain rescue team, the remains of both climbers were eventually recovered by experienced climbers who travelled from Dublin.
In light of these events and with increasing numbers having recourse to the Kerry Mountains, local man, Frank Lewis decided action was needed. In July 1966, he assembled a team of volunteers willing to provide rescue services to those in difficulty on the slopes of Ireland’s highest summits.
The skills of the new Kerry Mountain Rescue Team (KMRT) were soon tested stringently. The all-night rescue of Bill Collins from a remote and vertiginous mountainside, which has since been named Collins’ Gully, still remains one of the most demanding epics of the team’s history. Eight perilous hours in Stygian darkness were required to lower Collins’ and a further three to carry him to an ambulance. The rescue team spent 19 hours on the mountainside without food and in the worst possible conditions. Later, rescuer Paddy O'Callaghan recalled: “The terrain was desperate and we had no helmets and only minimal equipment. We could have been killed or injured ourselves but the mission was a success and we went on from there."
Providing a volunteer rescue service to the challenging mountains of Kerry and West Cork was clearly no place for well-intentioned amateurs, but instead required mountaineers with geographic, technical, and medical competency. Such competency was further tested in the severe winter of 1986 when three climbers were avalanched 500 feet down an area known as Curved Gully. Formidable ice climbing skills were then required to lower the casualties in darkness down a frozen waterfall from where they could be evacuated by helicopter at dawn.
Another epic in December 1998 involved five Dublin teenagers camping on Carrauntoohil. A storm blew down their tent and they spent the night shivering in survival bags. One teenager knew of a hut high on the mountain and at first light, he managed to lead the others there, which probably saved their lives.
Tired and suffering from dehydration and cold, they were, in the era before mobile phones, obliged to send two of the group down to alert KMRT. Realizing that speed was essential and that another night on the mountain would prove lethal, the rescuers began forcing their way upwards in what were described at the time as “desperate conditions”. They arrived just in time, for the remaining youths were suffering from hypothermia and needed to be warmed up before they were fit to be transported down.
Of course, not every call-out ends so well. When reports were received, in January 2002, that three climbers had fallen in a remote area of McGillycuddy’s Reeks, a rescue team was immediately airlifted to the scene. An injured person, found beneath a steep gully, was evacuated by helicopter in gathering darkness. A treacherous night search then confirmed every mountain rescuer's worst nightmare: two other climbers had perished. The team members stayed with the remains throughout the long January night and the next morning began the harrowing task of lowering the bodies. So inaccessible was the area, the bodies had to be transported over a lake by inflatable canoe to reach a suitable place for airlifting.
Since 1966, much has changed in terms of equipment, search management, first aid, and climbing competencies. One factor remains constant, however; the rescue service is entirely provided by volunteers, who very often find themselves heading up the mountains in conditions that would have all sensible people coming down — true selfless volunteerism and community service.
And with ever-increasing numbers of visitors seeking recourse to the Kerry hills, this has inevitably led to more call-outs, more rescues — and most frustratingly, exhausting night searches for individuals who got down safely but neglected to say so.
Yet despite the growing demands, there is never a shortage of volunteers to take up the rescue mantle. In times of diminished volunteerism, this shows an extraordinary commitment to a task that is often dangerous and traumatic, and physically demanding.
- The past two years have been the busiest since the team’s formation, with 124 call-outs dealt with in the period between January 2021 and December 2022.
- To maintain this service, the team relies heavily on donations and fundraisers. You can donate online at kerrymountainrescue.ie.
- The full story of the Kerry Mountain Rescue Team is contained in John G O'Dwyer's book, available from currachbooks.com.