This year marks the centenary of the ill-fated third British Mount Everest expedition of 1924 during which mountaineers George Leigh Mallory and Andrew “Sandy” Irvine were last spotted three hundred vertical metres from the summit. Debate rages to this day as to whether the men were the first to reach the top of the world’s tallest mountain, 29 years before the first recognised ascent by Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953. While the 1924 expedition holds a unique place in the hearts of the British public as a national self-sacrifice akin to Capt Robert Falcon Scott’s Terra Nova expedition, Mallory and many of his fellow expedition members also had strong links to Ireland. The British Mount Everest Reconnaissance mission, the first attempt on the mountain three years earlier, set off for the Himalayas in 1921 led by Irishman Charles Howard-Bury of Belvedere House, Co Westmeath.
Charles Howard-Bury was a shrewd pick as leader. Later a Conservative MP, the former soldier was renowned for his excellent leadership skills. However, he drew the ire of his colleague George Mallory who described Bury as “typical of the Irish landlord class”. In truth, Mallory’s affection for Ireland began long before he and Howard-Bury set foot on the snows of Everest. Having survived the Somme as an artillery officer, during which he was deeply affected by the slaughter he witnessed, Mallory re-entered civilian life working for the League of Nations. He soon became an advocate of Irish self-government after hearing a speech by Irish Parliamentary Party MP for West Donegal Hugh Alexander Law at Charterhouse School where he also taught. Mallory also regularly visited Ireland. His wife Ruth holidayed in Marble Hill in Co Donegal while Mallory himself climbed Mount Brandon and the MacGillycuddy’s Reeks with his friend and fellow member of the Alpine Club Conor O’Brien. While O’Brien later became involved in the Howth gun running, Mallory chose a more diplomatic route to highlight the Irish question.
At the invitation of his and O’Brien’s friend Desmond FitzGerald, the Dáil director of publicity, Mallory, as part of his role with the League of Nations, travelled to Ireland at the height of the War of Independence. As FitzGerald wrote: “Mr George Mallory is anxious to have first-hand information as to acts of oppression and terror. I shall be glad if he can be assisted.”
Mallory later wrote of a sense of dread as he walked the streets of Dublin and described being afraid to put his hands in his pockets in case he was mistakenly thought to be carrying a gun. Indeed Mallory’s sense of foreboding was well placed as he was later accosted in his hotel room by the marauding Black and Tans who, while pointing a gun at him, bellowed “Who are you? Where were you born? Are you a Protestant?” Mallory’s accent and his assertion that he was the son of a Church of England vicar were enough to save his life. However he was deeply affected by scenes of “pillage, arson and brutal beatings”. The most poignant sight of all for Mallory was that of a child lying dead in an alleyway, an innocent victim of the crossfire. On arriving back to England he told his wife Ruth that the vision of the child continued to haunt him and he would later write:
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“There has been wrong on both sides: but national aspirations, a passionate idealism, are to be found only on one side. It is to this fact that Irishmen appeal when they exclaim, ‘If only people in England knew! If only they would come and see!’”
Mallory returned to Everest in 1922 where he and his fellow expedition member the legendary climber George Ingle Finch respectively set world altitude records, both with and without the use of supplemental oxygen. However, the summit still remained elusive.
In 1924, Mallory set off again for Everest with, among others, Cork doctor Richard Hingston, for what was to be his final attempt on the mountain and ultimately the one that would claim his life.
The emergence of new barometric data from the climb suggests a storm and a severe drop in air pressure may have engulfed the mountain as both Mallory and Irvine neared the summit.
Perhaps Mallory’s deep belief that humanity was capable of great things and better than the slaughter he had witnessed, both in the Somme and on the streets of Dublin, played on his mind as he and Irvine disappeared into the mist.