A very special
wilderness haven

BORN in fire, shaped by ice, gentled by rain and sun and living things, the Mountains of Mourne are a place apart, and they occupy a unique place in the brotherhood of mountains and in the hearts of those who have been touched by their spell.

For people around the world in whose veins runs even a drop of Celtic blood the Mountains of Mourne are held in a remarkable affection. For the generations, of all ages and backgrounds, who have rambled and scrambled their paths and rocky slopes, studied their stone, sought their flowers and listened to the music of their streams, they are revered as a very special wilderness haven. For millions who may never have walked them, or even looked on them, but know them through folklore, picture and song, they evoke a singular nostalgia, seeming almost to embody Ireland’s mystical heritage.

H V Morton wrote: “The Mountains of Mourne . . are different from the blue hills of Donegal, different from the weird peaks of Kerry or the wild highlands of the West; yet they are linked to all these by that unearthly quality of the Irish landscape which I can describe only as something half in this world and half in the next”.

Cast in granites that are the island’s youngest rock, with spreading skirts of ancient shales patterned by the heat of the deep crucible, the Mournes display an exuberance of scenery that belies their modest area and unassuming stature. With enticing valleys and tracks offering a ready welcome from every side, they are a mountain world of easy familiarity, but for those who seek out their secret places no day there need ever end without some new charm discovered, some new drama observed – as simple as a bright blossom coy in a mossy crevice, as exquisite as the sparkling of crystal or of dancing water, as sublime as earth and elements in conflict. And ever there is, as Robert Lloyd Praeger treasured: ‘the solace and joy that comes with quiet wandering on foot along brown streams and among windy hills’.

The Mountains of Mourne have something to teach or instil, but to learn their lesson or catch their influence, one must do more than merely glance at them as though they were a picture book; one must approach them in a submissive spirit and wait for what they have to reveal with the passing hours, and days, and seasons, and years - and having gazed and gone away one must come back again and again.
- Louise McKay, 1837

Text and pictures © David Kirk