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‘Doc On 1’ with Michael Gannon. Broadcast Friday the 10th Of January 2025 https://www.connemarafm.com/audio-page/
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‘Doc On 1’ with Michael Gannon. Broadcast Friday the 10th Of January 2025 https://www.connemarafm.com/audio-page/
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‘Doc On 1’ with Michael Gannon. Broadcast Friday the 10th Of January 2025 https://www.connemarafm.com/audio-page/
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O'i gilydd, roedd yn dda iawn o bobl nad oedd yn siarad ychydig yn fawr neu'n gwneud ffust fawr o'i gweithgareddau fwyaf, ond mae'n debyg iddyn nhw i fod yn cofio ac mae'n dda iawn i'r grŵp ddocumentaidd am wneud y documentaidd hon. Mae'n cael ei ddweud, y flwyddynau mountain eraill, byddai'n mynd i ni o 1924 i 1999 a'r diwrnod heddiw. Tybeth, Diwrnod Diwethaf, 1924. Dwy flwyddyniadwyr, addysgwyr, George Lee Mallory, a ddysgwyr Oxford, Andrew Sandy-Irvin, maen nhw'n cael eu gweld ym mhob 800 o ffyrdd ymdrechol o'r cynyddu o'r gynnydd north o Mount Everest. Os ydyn nhw'n cyrraedd y pwynt, byddan nhw'n ymddangos fel y pobl cyntaf ar y cynyddu o'r flwyddyn fwyaf ar arian. Yn ei gofyn, mae George Mallory yn cyrraedd ffotograff o'i ewi, Ruth. Mae'n ei gofyn iddyn nhw y byddai'n ei leihau ar y pwynt ar ôl i'w cyrraedd y cynyddu. Yn awr, mae'r ffyrdd yn mynd i mewn. Mae Mallory a'r Irvin yn ymddangos o'r ystafell. Yn y cyntaf o'r cynyddu hynny, efallai y cynyddu mwyaf o bob amser oedd yr Irishman, Dr Richard Hingston. O'r RTE Documentary on One yng Nghymru, dyma'r Mountaineers sydd wedi cael eu haethu. Nid ydych chi'n gallu ystyried eu cyflawniaethau i wneud yr hyn maen nhw'n ei wneud, pan maen nhw'n dod gyda'r cyflwyniad maen nhw wedi'i gael. Rwy'n credu ei fod yn ddiddorol iawn. Mae'n Dŷn 2023, 99 mlynedd yn ôl, ac rwyf wedi dod i ddod o'r lle cyntaf Richard Hingston o Passage West, County Cork, i ddod allan mwy amdanyn nhw, ac i weld a allai ei ddiwrnod oedd yn helpu i gynllunio rhyw fath o ddiddorol sydd wedi digwydd am ystod cyfan. Roedden nhw, George Mallory a Andrew Irvine, y rhai cyntaf i ddod i'r cyfan o Mount Everest, 29 mlynedd yn ôl Sir Edmund Hillary a Siarpa Tenzing Norgay yn 1953. Dyma'r lle yma, gallwch weld eich casgliad yn ymddiried ag y rheilwaith, ac allan i'r fath sy'n ei gydnabod fel y bae Ffranciaid. Dyma Jim Murphy. Roedd Jim wedi tyfu dros y ffyrdd o Richard Hingston ac oedd yn gwybod ei hun yn bersonol. Roedd Hingston yn ddoctor a naturiolwyr ar ymddygiad Brydeinig ym 1924 Mallory a Irvine i Mount Everest. Roedd Hingston yn gadael ddiwrnod sylfaenol i bopeth sydd wedi digwydd ar y ddiddorol pan ddiddodd Mallory a Irvine i'r ffyrdd. Roeddwn i'n byw, roeddwn i'n dod 100 o ffyrdd o Horsedd dros y ffyrdd, ac roedd fy mhobl yn dweud i mi am Major Hingston, am Everest. Roedd hynny'n beth roedden nhw'n ei gwybod, ac bob blwyddyn o'r diwrnod, roedden nhw'n eu cymryd o ffyrdd, ac roedden nhw'n dweud eu bod nhw'n cael eu defnyddio yn Everest, ac byddai'r plant leol yno yn dod ymlaen, ac roeddwn i'n eu cymryd o ffyrdd. Yn ogystal â Jim, roedd Major Hingston, neu Richard fel oedd yn gwybod yn leol, yn dda iawn yn Passage West, ond roedd yn dda iawn ac yn ddiogel, nid yn rhoi'r disgwyl i'w defnyddio'n cyhoeddus yn y cyhoeddus. Dweud wrthi am y ffyrdd o'r ffyrdd, ble oeddech chi, ble oedden nhw? Byddai wedi bod ymlaen yma, roedd yn y ffyrdd yma, roedd wedi bod y ffyrdd yma. A beth oedd e'n ei wneud? Beth oedd e'n ei wneud, roedd e wedi bod ymlaen ac roedd e'n ei ddangos roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, roedd e'n ei ddangos, Roedd e'n myfyrwyr. Roedd e'n myfyrwyr. Roedd e'n myfyrwyr. Roedd e'n myfyrwyr. Roedd e'n myfyrwyr. Roedd e'n myfyrwyr. Roedd e'n myfyrwyr. Roedd e'n myfyrwyr. Roedd e'n myfyrwyr. Roedd e'n myfyrwyr. Roedd e'n myfyrwyr. Roedd e'n myfyrwyr. Roedd e'n myfyrwyr. Roedd e'n myfyrwyr. Roedd e'n myfyrwyr. Roedd e'n myfyrwyr. Roedd e'n myfyrwyr. Roedd e'n myfyrwyr. While he was there, he got the interest in natural history and because he got in, John was the medical officer, the doctor for the mapping of the Himalayas in 1913. Since Everest was first discovered to be the world's tallest mountain in 1856, there had been two failed attempts by the British to scale it, in 1921 and in 1922. By 1924, they were determined that they would succeed. In 1920, they finally got permission, after a lot of trying, to stage two expeditions to Everest. One would be a reconnaissance and the second one would be an attempt. And that's exactly what happened. This is Mick Conifery, author of several books on Mount Everest. Mallory was one of the known climbers of his era. But you have to imagine this as a tiny world. A lot of the mountaineers of the pre-war era had been killed in the First World War. People who'd been agitating to get to Everest before the war were dead. There was nobody with any Himalayan experience. Nobody really had been there. And Mallory was a member of the Alpine Club, which was the main climbing club, and he was known as a strong young climber. But really, there wasn't a big gene pool. George Mallory was born the son of a vicar. He showed an interest in climbing from an early age, and at one stage, climbed Mount Brandon in County Kerry. He also showed a keen interest in political affairs in Ireland. Well, Mallory was a son of a vicar from Birkenhead, close to Liverpool. He had a very conventional middle-class childhood, went to public school, then went to Cambridge. And then after Cambridge, he became a schoolteacher, first of all. But he was a bit of a kind of rootless guy. Like most people of his generation, he was pulled away to the First World War where he was an artillery officer. After the war, he came back and resumed briefly his school teaching. And when he came back from the war, for example, he at one point tried to work for the League of Nations, which is the equivalent of the United Nations now. He even actually went to Ireland in 1920, I think it was, at the height of the, you know, with the blackened hands in town, at the height of the war, because he said he wanted to see it for himself. The 1924 mission to climb Everest was full of experienced climbers and military men, and Richard Hingston was personally selected to be the group's medical officer and naturalist. Hingston would provide medical support and study the flora and fauna of the area, as well as the effects of altitude on human beings. Hingston was the team doctor and the team naturalist, but he was brought out as the expedition doctor. He'd been working in Iraq at the RAF hospital. He was very interested in altitude and wanted to kind of see how people would perform. He insisted on doing tests on them occasionally, which irritated them, as you can imagine. Alongside Hingston, the 12-strong climbing party included George Mallory, as well as a young Oxford student named Andrew Irvine, or Sandy to his friends due to his shock of blonde hair. Sandy Irvine was a brilliant rower and worked on the oxygen sets used for the expedition in his dorm room in Merton College, Oxford. I've travelled to Oxford to meet his great-niece, the author and historian Julie Summers. Sandy was working on the oxygen set. Remember, he was resurfacing the oxygen set, and he was up in these rooms, and there's a marvellous photograph of him making a pipe and pouring over the oxygen drawing, which is really quite moving, actually. So it's very special to be in this quad. Julie is showing me some of Sandy's personal belongings that were left behind at Mallory and Irvine's last camp on the mountain. She has donated these to Merton College, Oxford. Right, so this is the diary. This has been at Merton since, I think, something like 1963. And it's very moving because, you know, he wrote that this is now he's on the mountain, and he had a headache, and then he was touched by the sun. I think one of the things that they really didn't understand in the 1920s was the need for hydration. It's a really big problem on the mountain, and you need to drink litres and litres of water, and they didn't understand that. So he's often referring to a headache. He had a terrible night with wind and snow. I didn't have a tent fitted, he wrote. Very little sleep, and about two inches of snow over everything in the tent. Pretty grim, really, isn't it? So on the 5th, his last entry said, My sore face gave a lot of trouble during last night. He was one of the only ones who didn't grow a beard, so he shaved. And that meant that when he got sunburned, it was terrible. And then when he's putting the oxygen mask on his face, it hurts a lot. So he wrote, My sore face gave a lot of trouble during last night. Some of us feel very exhausted. It has been very trying for everyone, with freezing air temperature, and a top of 120 in the sun, and terribly strong reflection of the snow. My face is perfect agony. I've prepared two oxygen apparatus for our start tomorrow morning. And that's it, the last entry. It's quite moving, isn't it? And, I mean, for a young man to say my face is perfect agony, that's got to be a pretty uncomfortable experience, really. George Mallory had been part of the two earlier failed attempts to climb Mount Everest in 1921 and 1922. The earlier expeditions had been plagued by both bad weather and bad luck. And by 1924, Mallory was determined to succeed. He couldn't accept not being the first to reach the summit. But 1924 was going to be different. And Mallory was confident in his colleagues, in particular Richard Hingston. Writing to his wife Ruth, from Darjeeling, en route to Everest, Mallory enthused about the team doctor from County Cork. Really, it is an amazingly nice party altogether. One of the best is Hingston, our medical officer. An Irishman, a quiet little man, and a very keen naturalist. Hingston, Mallory and the rest of the group made their way to the Himalayas from various parts of the world. Hingston from Iraq and Mallory and Irvine from England. They arrived in Darjeeling on March 7th 1924 and began the long march to their base camp in the Wrongbook Valley, right at the foot of the Great Mountain, arriving there on May 11th 1924. After two months trekking towards the slopes of Everest, the party had just one goal on their minds. To be the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Hingston stayed behind at base camp to provide medical assistance if needed, as the climbing attempt was to be made. The team built several smaller camps further up along the route to the summit to rest in and acclimatise as they attempted to reach the top. With everything in place, Mallory, determined not to let the mountain beat him, and feeling this truly was his last chance, set off for the summit with Andrew Irvine as his climbing partner. They both carried the oxygen sets that Irvine had worked on in Merton College, Oxford. Fellow expedition member Noel O'Dell was to follow them in support, starting later, and remaining a few thousand metres below them. Before all three men left camp, Noel O'Dell took a picture of Mallory and Irvine as they prepared their gear and strapped on their oxygen tanks. Mallory also took a camera with him so that he and Irvine could take a picture of the summit, while in his pocket he carried the picture of his wife Ruth, which he vowed to place in the snow at the top of the mountain. Writing in his diary, which is a first-hand account of the climb, from inside his tent at base camp in the freezing cold, Richard Hingston could feel a sense of foreboding. He felt extremely worried as Mallory and Irvine began to trudge up the shoulder of the mountain and disappear out of his line of sight. It was as if the mountain was alive, groaning beneath their feet. The mountains are continually giving forth sounds. At camp two it was the splitting of the ice. Here it is the falls and avalanche of rock. Yet a few living creatures ascend even to here. Chuffs and crows look about for scraps. A little black spider lives amongst the stones. Mallory and Irvine left camp today. They intend to make an oxygen attempt. After a day, tending to other members of the expedition team, Hingston began to grow increasingly worried about Mallory and Irvine. Hingston had every right to be worried. Both Mallory and Irvine had literally set off into the unknown. They were heading into an area 8,000 metres above sea level, known in mountaineering language as the Death Zone. At this altitude, there is not enough oxygen to sustain human life. The name is apt, as the human body is literally dying. I mean, like, we call it dangerous if after we cross it 3,000 metres. This is Prakash Sripa, a guide working in the Everest region. According to Prakash, altitude begins to affect the human body from 3,000 metres above sea level. High altitude sickness probably can hit anybody, even to the Sherpas and even to the local people, after you cross 3,000 metres. So you have to be really prepared for these things, and the high altitude sickness, if you have difficulty in breathing, you get a weakness. There are lots of symptoms that we can see in the people who follow this altitude sickness. Like, they start with vomiting, dizziness, weakness, fatigue, and things like that. And the final result will be the death. As minutes turned into hours, and hours turned into days, everyone began to grow worried about Mallory and Irvine. 7th of June, 1924, 21,000 feet. There is no news of Mallory and Irvine. Personally, I've not much hope of their success. Neither of them are fit enough for so great an effort, unless the oxygen is of greater value than we expect. This will be the last of the attempts. Already arrangements are in hand for the evacuation of the camps. The monsoon will be on us any time. The party is exhausted by fatigue and exposure. Within a week, we should all be off the mountain, and no one will regret it. All have had a grueling this year, and need a rest at lower elevations. Little did Mallory and Irvine know, but combined with the effects of altitude, ahead of them lay some of the most fearsome climbing obstacles on Earth. These would pose a serious mountaineering challenge at sea level, never mind in the oxygen starved death zone of Mount Everest. 9th of June, 1924, 21,000 feet. A most anxious day. Not a sign of Mallory and Irvine. The condition of the mountain has changed for the worse. For the most of the day, it had been in cloud, with every indication of a bitter wind. Everything points to a fatality, which would be a disastrous ending to the affair. We cannot leave here without more definite information as to what has occurred. Donegal man, Jason Black, has climbed to the summit of Mount Everest, as well as K2 and other 8,000 metre peaks, and took the same route to the Everest summit as Mallory and Irvine did in 1924. It is a serious, serious climb, and now you're still at the very bottom of this mountain. And then the big boys start to appear, which is the three pinnacles. First of all, mushroom rock. And then we've got the first step, second step, third step at 8,000 metres. Like these things are... To climb these things at sea level would be challenging enough, but to do these things at 8,000 metres, you know, first step is a really, really... It's not overly high, as in it's a technical climb. It's a sheer rock face. You've got to be able to get up and over it. You know, it's about 30 foot in altitude, but it's at 28,000... I think it's at 28,000, 28 or 29 foot in the air. You know, oxygen levels are really low. Air pressure is really difficult. It's cold. And on my right side, as I'm telling you now, like I'm visualising it in my head, on my right side, I'm looking down, and there's thousands and thousands and thousands of foot of descent. And it's like looking into a black hole. It's like an abyss. The wind is coming up from it. Second step is a serious, serious climb. When I was there, I pre-climbed it. You know, it's a sheer... It's a sheer rock face. And the fear of God is in your blood. I could taste the blood in my throat, you know, and you know that one shift to your right-hand side, it's all over. A similar sense of dread began to seep into base camp. It was becoming obvious, as time went by, that something was seriously wrong. And nobody seemed to know had Mallory and Irvin been able to reach the top of the mountain. While Hingston and others at base camp had no idea what had happened to Mallory and Irvin, climbing a few thousand feet below them in support was Noel O'Dell. O'Dell hadn't seen the men since he took their photograph as they set off on their summit bid. However, all of a sudden, as he reached a height of 26,000 feet, just 3,000 feet from the summit, clouds over the mountain cleared and O'Dell saw two figures in the distance. In 1924, Noel O'Dell was one of the best alpine climbers in the world and had reached the summit of many famous European mountains. But perhaps most crucially of all, he was the most acclimatised climber on the whole 1924 expedition. A geologist by trade, he would have no problem spotting a moving figure on the mountain ridge. Speaking in the 1980s, O'Dell was in no doubt he saw Mallory and Irvin high on the mountain's ridge, a few hundred metres from the summit and in his own words, going strong for the top. On the day that Mallory and Irvin made their attempt, they went up and pitched their first camp at Camp 5, 25,000 feet. I followed them up independently. Because there wasn't really room in the small tents we had there. And then the day that they went up from Camp 5 to our top bivouac tent at 27,000, which we called Camp 6, that day I went up. On my way up, I saw Mallory and Irvin silhouetted against a snow slope and approaching one of the rock steps in what we call the North East Ridge that leads up towards the final pyramid. I'm absolutely certain they were climbers, they were moving, actually, moving figures. As it is unknown exactly which route Mallory and Irvin took that day, Noel O'Dell's sighting has been scrutinised over the years. This is his grandson, Peter O'Dell. My grandfather had been criticised for getting that sort of wrong a little bit and eyesight and not being able to acclimatise. But my grandfather then, his eyesight would have been pin sharp. There's no doubt in my mind that he saw two figures in the clearing of the Nis, high up on the mountain. But exactly where that was is a little bit more difficult to ascertain because they were very late setting off, they were delayed. It was now June 8th and it had been almost two days since Mallory and Irvin had been spotted on the mountain ridge by O'Dell. It was clear that things had taken a turn for the worst and something must have happened to the men. Conditions on the mountain were severe and the weather was brutal. In driving snow, mist and bitter wind, Noel O'Dell, alongside his sherpa, Nima, searched frantically for his friends. Speaking in the 1980s, Noel O'Dell described his search for Mallory and Irvin. It was blowing very hard and blowing snow and mist and stuff. Visibility was bad, very bad. Anyhow, I got back to Bivouac tent after looking for them. Above Camp 6, that's above 27,000 feet. I got up, I don't know, I got up somewhere between 27,000 and 28,000 feet and got back there. I signaled by a very primitive means, by means of sleeping bags placed at a certain position on the nearest patch of snow, which I did, indicating I couldn't find them and that we must conclude that they were lost. Eventually, after many hours searching, O'Dell realised the worst. Mallory and Irvin must have fallen to their deaths. Hingston and his colleagues were distraught. And while some of the expedition members felt the men had failed in their summit bid, Hingston believed Mallory and Irvin made it to the summit, but fell on the way back down. Noel O'Dell also believed Mallory and Irvin reached the summit. Here he is, speaking in the 1980s. I think that when they got to the foot of the final pyramid, it was late. Mallory would say, well, we've got to hurry up here because it's almost poaching dusk, and along we go. I don't think Irvin in any way would have hesitated to go, nor do I think he'd been unfit enough to say, oh no, I don't think we can manage it. I think he'd been perfectly willing to go on, and they might well have got to the top. Hingston was devastated, although he agreed it was best to evacuate the mountain for the safety of the rest of the team. 10th of June, 1924, 21,000 feet. There can be no doubts. The worst has happened. Not a sign of Mallory and Irvin. They must have slipped near the summit or fallen down the face of the mountain. This is a bad ending and a serious loss to all of the expedition. It is certain to cause talk and criticism, though nobody is in the slightest to blame. O'Dell, with his porter, is on search all day. He had a grueling time. We received a signal in the evening that all hope was abandoned. O'Dell searched the mountain, and it would be impossible to remain a night exposed on the mountain and survive. I shall not be sorry to leave this spot. I've now been here for a week at over 22,000 feet. If only we abandoned it under happier conditions. Everest is the most dangerous mountain. In three expeditions, it has claimed 12 victims. It is just possible that Mallory and Irvin may have climbed it. O'Dell last saw them at about 800 feet from the summit and going strong for the top. We are all heartily sick of the business by now. No one is fit to stay here any longer, much less to make another attempt. Everyone has lost a great deal of weight. We must go down to lower altitudes and recuperate in some green spot. And so, reluctantly, but in fear of the approaching monsoon snowstorms, the evacuation of the mountain began. When the team eventually reached the bottom of the Wrong Book Valley, in which Everest is situated, Hingston and the others solemnly erected a memorial cairn to Mallory and Irvin. 14th of June, 1924. Wrong Book Base Camp, 16,500 feet. We are off tomorrow for the Wrong Shar Valley. I spent the morning collecting our mess stores. The construction of the cairn is going on apace. The cairn will stand on a hillock near the camp in full view of the great mountain. Historian Mick Conifery says that Odell believed the men bivouacked, that is, to make an improvised shelter on their way back down the mountain, after having reached the summit. He thought that, he was the last person to see them, he thought that they probably had made the summit, and he thought what had probably happened was that on the way down, it was so late in the day that rather than climbing down, they had basically tried to bivouack for the night and had died of exposure. A memorial service was held in St Paul's Cathedral, London, for Mallory and Irvin, and their summit attempt became mountaineering folklore. However, nobody was sure had Everest actually been conquered yet. There were many subsequent expeditions, but nobody met it as high on the mountain as where Noel Odell had last seen Mallory and Irvin. Finally, in 1953, on the morning of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, news began to filter through that a British team had finally and definitively reached the summit of Mount Everest. Everest conquered, the New Zealander Edmund Hillary got his first mail and congratulatory telegrams from George Lowe, a fellow countryman and expedition colleague. Up 35 miles from Kathmandu, capital of Nepal, Hillary and Ten Sing were welcomed and congratulated by their fellow members of the expedition. However, Ten Sing descended from his glory into the centre of a minor political storm. He was born in Nepal and grew up in India, and both nations are now at loggerheads to claim him as their national. However, Ten Sing was unruffled when Colonel Hunt congratulated him and Hillary. Two unassuming men had climbed the 29,000-foot monarch of the Himalayas. Now in the state coast of Nepal, Hillary and Ten Sing, with Colonel Hunt and others of the expedition, rode in triumph through Kathmandu. Colonel Hunt has modestly declared that his team climbed Everest on the shoulders of all their predecessors. The whole world, however, acclaims the expedition, in particular Hillary, Ten Sing and Colonel Hunt. The bodies of Mallory and Irvin were at this point not discovered on Everest, but for few people had been that high in the mountain, it was unclear where they lay, something Edmund Hillary wondered about as he made the summit. Yes, when I reached the summit of Mount Everest, and I sort of looked round about, and particularly when I looked down towards the North Col, Mallory actually was very much in my mind, and although I really had no hope of actually seeing any sign of his passing, I certainly looked down towards the North Col, I looked sort of over and down the very steep slopes leading from the summit, but I saw nothing, no sign of Mallory's passing. Well, my name is Peter Hillary, I'm the son of Sir Edmund Hillary, who along with Ten Sing Norgay made the first ascent of Mount Everest. Oh, my father greatly admired George Mallory, he always told us that, you know, really he was the great mountaineer, Himalayan mountaineer of that era, and in fact he wrote about it, you know, after Everest, how when they got to the top that he looked around for any evidence that Mallory and Irvine had been up there, maybe an old oxygen cylinder or a stake pounded into the summit, or some evidence that they'd been there, and he had great admiration for George Mallory. As the years rolled by after the 1924 expedition, the team members all went on to different things. Noel O'Dell went on to set many mountaineering records and became a noted Cambridge professor of geology, and when he changed his opinion on where exactly on the ridge he saw Mallory and Irvine, he believed to his final days that both men made it to the summit. Richard Hingston went on to have a distinguished career as a naturalist and the author of several books on natural history and the Himalayas. His writings on the effects of altitude on human beings were much sought after by subsequent mountaineering expeditions on Everest and beyond. However, when he returned to Cork, he was advised not to discuss his exploits on Everest publicly, lest he draw attention to the fact that he had served in the British Army. With three young children and a wife to look after, Hingston never again spoke publicly about his role on the 1924 expedition. He died in 1966, his great heroics passing out of public knowledge with him. Before I left Passage West, Jim Murphy, Richard Hingston's next-door neighbour, took me to Richard Hingston's final resting place. It's a simple grave, considering his great bravery on Everest. In memory of Richard W. G. Hingston, horsehead, Indian Medical Service, died 5th of August 1966. I would have liked to have seen a more fitting horse, a more, I suppose, a more dramatic headstone for the man, for what he did and what he achieved. But I suppose that he's kind of outlooking life, simple, and never preached about his deeds or anything. Simple life, simple man. His Everest diaries were eventually donated to Trinity College Dublin by his daughter Jill and Jim, who was determined that his old friend should not be forgotten. George Mallory and Andrew Sandy Irvine's bodies lay undiscovered on Everest for the next 75 years. In 1995, George Mallory's grandson climbed to the top of Mount Everest and placed a photograph of both his grandparents on the summit. As he knelt in the snow, a fellow climber remarked to him, Your grandfather would be very proud of you. Just four years later, in 1999, George Mallory's body was discovered on the slopes of Mount Everest. He had suffered an open wound fracture on his leg and had severe rope jerk injuries, indicating that he and Irvine were roped together when they fell. While his altimeter, which is used to calculate height, reached by a climber and his wrist watch were broken, and crucially the camera he had carried was missing, there was some evidence that he and Irvine had reached the summit and stood on the roof of the world. When George Mallory's body was searched, his snow goggles were in his pocket, indicating he was descending at night. Also, there was no sign of the oxygen sets he and Andrew Irvine had been wearing when Noel O'Dell last saw them, indicating that they had been stored further up the mountain. An oxygen cylinder belonging to the men was also found on the ridge where O'Dell had last spotted them, and indications were the men had enough oxygen left to make a quick summit attempt. But most crucially of all, there was no sign of the photograph of Mallory's wife Ruth, which he had vowed to place on the summit. The discovery of Mallory's remains in 1999 certainly brought strong new evidence into the claim that Mallory and Irvine were the very first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest in 1924. Jason Black, the Dunny-Gall man who had climbed Mount Everest, along what is now referred to as the Mallory route, is in little doubt about their accomplishments. I don't think people can really grasp the magnitude of what these guys did, you know, the true pioneers, you know. You know, it's a step into space, you know, in the mountaineering world. You know, this is what they did. They were the first to the moon, you know, in the mountaineering sense. You know, while we sadly get caught up in the debate of who was there first, what we're actually missing in the conversation is that they were the first, because they were the first to step onto the mountain. They were the first to have the courage to go there. They were the first to realise that it was possible. It's a point echoed by Sandy Irvine's great-niece, Julie Summers. I think what George and Sandy achieved is so astonishing that it's a record in its own right. You know, they were climbing higher than any man had ever climbed before. As a family, we're hugely proud of this remarkable young man. We can do nothing more than, you know, look at the history books and look at the photographs and remember him as part of the family, but also as a very important historical figure. But I do think Sandy himself would be the first to admit that he stood on Mallory's shoulders. If Andrew Irvine's body is found, along with Mallory's camera, which it is believed he was carrying, it may shed light on if the men were truly the first to climb to the summit of Mount Everest. However, Julie Summers believes Mallory and Irvine should be let rest in peace. My opinion, and I'm going to say it very loudly and strongly, is leave him alone. My grandmother, who absolutely adored him, said, and she was a religious woman, she said, Everest is his grave. I don't really want him found, if I'm absolutely honest, because I think their achievements were extraordinary. The mystery is, as I've said on many occasions, one of the greatest mysteries of all time. It has a real romance to it, and I don't want to see that corpse, thank you very much. And I want to remember him as the young man who my grandmother and so many other people adored, and who achieved a great thing with George Mallory. And I'd much rather that was left alone. Peter O'Dell has nothing but admiration for his grandfather, Noel, and his colleagues, Mallory and Irvine. You can't underestimate their achievements. To do what they did, when they did, with the equipment they'd had, I think was truly remarkable. Once something's been done, it's not necessarily easier, but in some way it enables somebody else to do it a second time more easily. So I think there's a natural sort of mystique about it, there's a natural... people are so inquisitive, they want to sort of try and get to the bottom of this particular mystery. So I don't decry people for doing that, but you've just got to be full of admiration for what they did achieve. Peter Hillary, son of Sir Edmund Hillary. George Mallory's efforts inspired people like my father in Tenzing, and some of the other brilliant climbers who've climbed on Everest and other great 8,000 metre peaks, of course gained confidence from the experience and success of Hillary and Tenzing. And so we have a generation of incredible young mountaineers who are doing extraordinary technical routes on very, very high mountains like Mount Everest. And this is extending that realm of possibility that Hillary and Tenzing opened up all those 70 years ago. Whether or not Mallory and Irvine made it to the summit, one thing is certain, they were absolutely fearless on that most desolate and dangerous mountain, walking head-on into history to meet whatever the elements threw at them. And Richard Hingston, that quiet little Irishman, as Mallory described him, remembered them both as he walked the streets of Passage West for the rest of his days. Today, almost 100 years since Mallory and Irvine disappeared into the clouds high on the mountain, opinions still differ about their success, but those closest to the events, eyewitnesses, believe they got there first. Richard Hingston believed they made it, and Noel O'Dell believed the two very small men he saw cutting steps into the roof of the world that fateful day in June 1924 went all the way to the top. So who was the first to stand on the summit of Mount Everest? Hillary and Tenzing or Mallory and Irvine? In the end, only the mountain knows. Mallory's own letters, which Noel O'Dell brought back with him in 1924 from the last camp Mallory and Irvine stayed in before their summit attempt, show a man determined to succeed despite all the costs. Written in hurricane winds, suffering from frostbite and exhaustion high in the death zone, George Lee Mallory was resolute that he would be the first to stand upon the roof of the world. It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves, because it's there. So if you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself, upward and forever upward, then you won't see why we go. We are going to sail to the top this time, and God with us, or stamp to the top with the wind in our teeth. Thank you. You've been listening there to the RTE Dock on One documentary. The Last Mountaineer is a very sad and tragic story in many respects, but in other respects a very uplifting story, a fascinating story, and it's great to learn that there was such an Irish connection to this story. I suppose there are very few events in the world or very few stories that don't have some sort of an Irish connection, and this one has a very strong one indeed. And it would be lovely to visit Passage West one of the days and see the places where Richard Hingston, Dr. Richard Hingston, or also Major Richard Hingston, lived for practically all his life and peaceful life after his return from the Himalayas. Now, there's very sad news, of course, in Tibet. This week with the earthquake, just about 80 km, I think, to the north of Mount Everest, I think there are over 350 people dead already from that, and rescue crews and recovery crews still working very, very hard there to rescue people in the first place, and, of course, sadly then to recover bodies from those who have not survived that awful event. So, we are thinking of them. They are, apart from the difficulties of the earthquake itself, they are living in temperatures at the moment from minus 6 down as low as minus 16 degrees. So, difficult to rescue people from a disaster zone in any conditions, but in those conditions very difficult indeed. It's the opposite, I suppose, on the other side of the world, in California, where again the Los Angeles disaster, we've seen the effects of that. Not as many fatalities, thankfully, but thousands and thousands of people bereft now of their homes and their livelihoods due to the fires there in Los Angeles. Many Connemara people and people from our own areas in that general area, and we hope and pray that all of them are keeping OK and are in touch with their families and communities here. Now, I was talking on Monday morning, if it was, with Janet O'Toole on the morning program, just to remember a great man from our own area, from down the road from us, in N'Ghaile Indrewan, Matty Jo Hamish, who passed away last weekend, who was buried in his local native graveyard there in Crook, Indrewan, who was buried just a mile or two from his own home on Monday. Matty Jo Hamish, great musician, great broadcaster, great footballer, with Micheál Brámach for many, many years, and a great friend of everyone in Connemara, in the festivals, the Sea Week Festival, the Clifton Arts Festival, the Loughborough Cloncarrowan Festival every May. He was a regular visitor to those festivals, and he was at probably every flakyol, certainly he's not every flakyol in the country. He was always at the Galway and the Connacht flakyols, and as well as playing and singing himself, he was always generous enough and willing enough to be a judge as well, a job that nobody particularly likes. But Matty Jo Hamish having performed and won every competition going, I suppose over the years himself, was happy to do that, and he was always very generous with his comments on people who took part in competitions. He was by trade originally a national school teacher, then a full-time broadcaster with Braidheanna Ghaeltachta, and a music collector indeed. Sadly missed, and we're going to remember him again today. As well as singing and playing, he played the pipes, and he played the flute, and of course he sang mainly Seamá songs from his own area, from Coiseadigit there. He sang one called Láida Cáilín, which is an interesting one for ourselves, with Cáilín being the patron saint of Ballycineadig. But Cáilín is also well known further south in Connemara, and there is indeed a Seamá song, Láida Cáilín. We'll bring you that one of the day. But what I'd like to bring you this afternoon to remember Matty Jo Hamish is a little piece of his Lilting. He was a beautiful man for the Porthradach Béal, Porthradach Béal Lilting. And we're going to bring you two songs now from... Well, they're not songs, they're listed as songs on his album, but they're actually Porthradach Béal, they're actually Lilting. We're going to bring you the new Môn Meadows, a very well-known tune, and then the tune that I hadn't heard before, or at least I hadn't come across the title of it before, the Connacht Heifers. Matty will give us a rendition, a beautiful Lilting rendition of these two tunes, which, of course, he also played on the pipes and the flute many a time. This is the piece that Matty Jo Hamish used to play on the pipes and the flute in the pub. This is the new Môn Meadows and the Connacht Heifers. The Connacht Heifers Matty Jo Hamish Matty Jo Hamish Matty Jo Hamish Matty Jo Hamish Matty Jo Hamish Matty Jo Hamish Matty Jo Hamish Matty Jo Hamish You heard there the new Môn Meadows and the Connacht Heifers, these are two tunes lilted by Matty Jo Hamish from Fáirta, to make a reference to Matty Jo Hamish from Galway, a week ago, and from Caddw in the Great, on the hill, on the hillside of the Connacht Heifers, as far as you can see there. Now, the life of Joe Steve O'Neachtain, in the same area where Matty was buried in Connacht Heifers, Joe Steve O'Neachtain will take place next weekend, and a few lovely events happening there. One of Joe Steve's dramas, and one of his own plays, Fúil Lleidaí Híor, is being staged later this year, directed by Ciarán Fáirta. Ciarán Festi, it will be in Seanscull Halderna, in the old school in Salerno, which has been converted into a beautiful theatre. It'll be there Saturday night and Sunday night, and already, I believe, Saturday night is sold out, so Sunday night probably will be sold out in the next day or two, and hopefully, perhaps, the Aisteadí Ciarán Fáirta, and hopefully Ciarán and his troupe of actors can re-stage that, perhaps in a few, Halley, in a few places throughout Connemara. I know it's difficult to do that when you're used to working in such a beautiful purpose-built theatre that is in place now in Seanscull Halderna, but hopefully that can be done. The actors themselves, well, they're used to performing in different venues. Many other events happening throughout the weekend of the 16th and 17th of January, as part of Scáil Gíbhre, they're calling it a winter school, but it's a splendid space of music and drama, and, of course, for Dóis Aobhainneacht and Finneacht poetry. There will be a lovely event with Johnny Oag Connolly, and I was reading this on the Clóir, on the programme, and I had to re-read it twice because the first time I read it, I read it as it is written here, almost, Síochairnú Chomta Cheoile, Johnny Oag Connolly, agus a cháirde. So that's a new piece of music composed by Johnny Oag Connolly, and it's played for the first time by himself and his friends, and the title of it is Ómos, which, of course, means respect. The banner key there will be Ceatlaín ní Chulainn, and that is in the same venue, Árfan, Árfaclainn, Chasáideigis, Seáncadhealdeirne, that's on the Friday night, that's on the 17th. The drama are on Saturday and Sunday of next weekend, not this weekend, next weekend, 17th and 18th, and there are several other events happening there throughout the weekend. So, if you can read a little bit, I hope that I'll be able to read a little bit more, as you can, and that I'll be able to read a bit more, and that I'll be able to read a bit more, and that I'll be able to read a bit more, and that I'll be able to read a bit more, and that I'll be able to read a bit more, and that I'll be able to read a bit more, and that I'll be able to read a bit more, and that I'll be able to read a bit more, and that I'll be able to read a bit more, and that I'll be able to read a bit more, and that I'll be able to read a bit more, and that I'll be able to read a bit more, and that I'll be able to read a bit more, and that I'll be able to read a bit more, and that I'll be able to read a bit more, and that I'll be able to read a bit more, and that I'll be able to read a bit more, and that I'll be able to read a bit more, and that I'll be able to read a bit more, and that I'll be able to read a bit more, and that I'll be able to read a bit more, and that I'll be able to read a bit more, and that I'll be able to read a bit more, and that I'll be able to read a bit more,
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