Completing the Arderins

Coomnahorna (Com na hEorna) left skyline, Slievenashaska South Top (Sliabh na Seasca (mullach theas)) to the right - photo Simon Stewart

In 2009 the name Arderins was given to a list of the mountains in Ireland of 500 metres or more.  Arderin (Ard Éireann in Irish “the height of Ireland”) is the name of a representative mountain in the centre of the island of Ireland. The name was originated and promoted by MountainViews.ie.  It is now also accepted by Mountaineering Ireland, the national representative body for hillwalking in Ireland, as the “headline list” of Irish mountains.  Although very different from the Scottish Munros, it is similar in that it is a lifelong challenge for most summiteers.  MountainViews also offers a family of lists including the “County Highpoints”, “The Local 100”, the “Highest Hundred”.

Visiting all of these 406 mountains has been my pleasure for over fifty years.  Sometime solo, sometimes with friends and very often with my wife, Margaret O’Sullivan.   While there was a crowd of thirty to celebrate reaching Torc (Sliabh Torc) 535m, P298m near Killarney for my last Arderin on Saturday, 15th January 2022, this couldn’t be further from the usual experience.  Most of the Arderins are in isolated places with very few visitors in a month. Realistic logistics for reaching them will make it likely that they will often be reached in poor weather with little or no visibility.

The Arderin I visited before Torc was such.  It should have been reasonably easy to get to Slievenashaska South Top 565.4m, P35m.  It can be reached easily from near the village of Sneem in around 6 hours round trip, using the Kerry Way.  But it took all of our mountain craft to deal with uncrossable streams, unwalkable lake edges, contorted broken land and condensing mist over 350 metres.

Most of Ireland was planed flat by thick ice-sheets in the Ice Ages.  However some parts of the south-west were not as glaciated and the terrain there is extremely rough, with tors and clefts filled with marshy vegetation.

We had to go to the top of Coomnahorna 590m, P135m twice as part of the revamped route.  While a fine challenge that ultimately gave great satisfaction,  it took us 8¾ hours.

I give thanks to my companions Vera and Margaret for never questioning whether we would be done before sunset as the initial plans went pear-shaped.

Visiting the Arderins as an activity

It is fantastic fun to visit the Arderins.  It is a reason to go to these isolated, semi-wild places.  It is a reason to try new and different mountain areas.   I am the twelfth person to have completed the Arderins, first completed in its current form in 2012.  Most of the other completers so far are quick finishers and I expect increasing numbers taking longer as time goes on.  It’s just as well, as my dubious distinction of taking longer than anyone else may then be seen as less odd.

It is expedient to visit as many contiguous summits as possible in one trip, but this may not be possible for a variety of reasons.  So, as you complete, you find that increasingly it can become like finishing a jigsaw, given that you may have visited others in the area.  For the trip to Slievenashaska South Top, I had already visited Slievenashaska 578m, P128m, and the hugely dramatic and lake-bound An Bhinn Láir 514m, P64m to its north via a different route, and also Coomnahorna (Com na hEorna) 590m, P135m from a third direction in previous years.  It is easy enough to keep track of what you have done on MountainViews, which has had the facility to log visits since the start.

I have taken the approach, where possible, of investigating interesting routes, reading other people’s comments, and sharing tracks, photos and comments when I get back.  I haven’t sought to maximise the number of places reached in a trip.  While I certainly get satisfaction from ticking off visits, I also get high satisfaction from knowing about places and engaging in discussion about them.

Others often seem to be much more focussed on the quick tick.  Different strokes for different folks.

The MountainViews.ie website allows for the quick tick, and can provide instant feedback on achievements through a “Hall of Records”.  Annually we issue awards for completers, and there are many intermediate lists for people to complete.  

However the website also attempts to provide for a rich community experience, which we call summiteering.  There are extended comments on places with photos and shared tracks which encourage creative input from humour to history. There is information on the names, in English and Irish, pronunciation files even for some and a summary for those in a hurry.  There is a map showing starting places.  There is a division of summits into a straightforward family of lists tuned for Irish circumstances. The summits are structured into around sixty areas, and these are further divided into sub-areas.  Our newsletters allow us to see what other people found valuable and news about changes in the countryside affecting hillwalking. 

An attraction of summiteering is the viewpoints it brings you to for photography, in my case  thousands of pictures.  Below are a few more.

Simon Stewart

Founder of MountainViews.ie, a hillwalkers’ website for Ireland

Published: June 2022

Editors note:  for a definition and list of the Arderins, see at https://mountainviews.ie/lists/arderin/, and also at http://www.hill-bagging.co.uk/Arderins.php?ct=I