Hundreds ignore warnings and attempt Croagh Patrick climb

Mountain rescue and first aid volunteers remain on duty on Croagh Patrick on Sunday as a steady stream of people ignored warnings and attempted the ascent.

The annual pilgrimage was cancelled this morning due to “treacherous conditions”.

Gardaí, the Catholic Church and the emergency services cancelled the annual pilgrimage for the first time in living memory this morning due to powerful winds, heavy rain and thick fog which reduced visibility to less than 3 meters.

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Westport parish priest Fr Charlie McDonnell saidgales had blown away the temporary extension to the oratory at the summit, while the Order of Malta also lost a tent.

The decision to cancel was taking during a meeting between gardaí and the emergency services attended by Archbishop of Tuam Dr Michael Neary just before 7am.

However, several hundred people, including families with young children, ignored the warnings and attempted to set out from the base at Murrisk this morning.

While the mountain cannot officially be closed or pilgrims barred from climbing, authorities including Mayo Mountain Rescue are strongly advising people do not make the attempt.

Gardaí have warned that mountain rescue teams and the Aer Corps rescue helicopter face additional difficulties in trying to respond to injured climbers in the stormy conditions.

The wind was gusting to gale force seven between 4am and 5am on Sunday, Mayo Mountain Rescue said, with conditions several hours later still regarded as dangerous.

Some climbers who ignored the warnings were forced to turning back on reaching the ridge – roughly halfway up the mountain, due to strong winds and poor visibility.

Three people have been treated so far by medical volunteers, including a 14-year-old girl suffering from hypothermia, but none of the cases so far has been serious.

Several medical tents were damaged in gale force winds during the night, and heavy rain has made the underfoot conditions treacherous.

A status yellow weather warning for heavy rainfall of between 25 to 30 mm has been issued by Met Éireann until Sunday evening.

The mountain has been shrouded in mist since dawn on Sunday, and all masses on the mountain were cancelled.

Rolling masses and confessions from 8am were transferred to Lecanvey Church , where Archbishop of Tuam Dr Michael Neary said Mass at 10.30am.

Archbishop Michael Neary said the cancellation was disappointing. “I’m not aware of it having been cancelled before and I’ve been climbing this mountain since I was a young lad many, many years ago.”

“It is disappointing for people who have made plans but our advice is that it’s too dangerous, there are too many people, it’s a very poor surface near the top underfoot, it is raining and visibility is zero.”

In his homily, preached at the vigil mass on Saturday evening in Lecanvey, Dr Neary said faith was being undervalued by a “consumerist culture” and an “exaggerated” confidence in human progress which resulted in religion being regarded as “part of disposable society”.

Such a culture emphasised rights at the expense of responsibilities, and it was a reminder of the Tower of Babel where, when “giving expression to their creative powers, people attempted to build a universe in which God would be excluded”.

Religious faith ought to be a “protest again”, rather than an “acceptance” of a consumerist culture, he said. The acid test of any society or faith was the care it took of the disadvantaged, he noted.

“No one has the right to impose his or her religious convictions on society, but if we fail to acknowledge the insights which faith contributes to the principles for which we stand and the values we share, then society will be the real loser,” Dr Neary said.

People needed to be “supported in their efforts to maintain a way of life which may not be supported by the opinion polls today”, he said.