News Item

Eiger, Sugarloaf and Fairy Castle

Monday August 9 - Joe Lalor

Eiger, Sugarloaf and Fairy Castle


In the “Irishman’s Diary” of the Irish Times of the 3rd August there is the lovely tale of Charles Barrington a 24 year old from Fassaroe, Co. Wicklow and his remarkable holiday in 1858.
As told by the Swiss Alpine journalist and climber Daniel Anker, the intrepid 24-year-old amateur arrived in the village of Grindewald, bringing with him the most primitive of climbing equipment. There he hired two of the village’s best guides to tackle the most sinister, the most deadly of mountains, the unclimbed, and it was thought, the unclimbable 13,026 feet Eiger. The article continues with a very lively description of the climb, which surprisingly is not covered by the recently published “Killing Dragons”, history of Alpine conquests (although it is acknowledged by a brief mention of Barrington in the preface). Having finished with the Eiger he had to cancel plans to tackle the Matterhorn for the lack of money and went home never to return to his first love horse riding. There is no record of him ever climbing another mountain.

The article concludes with a little gem, which concerns us and requires a correction to something that was announced a few years back. In 2001 a CD was produced with most of the surviving records of past hill runs. In this it was announced that the first hill race was up Fairy Castle with a prize offered by Niall Rice of a suit length (a valuable prize before the popularity of “off the peg” suits) won by Brian Kenny. Barrington lived out is life quietly in Fassaroe making the local headlines only once, when he donated a gold watch (much better than a suit) for a race up and down the Sugarloaf in 1870. A Tom Hill (a great name for a hill runner) was the winner. Click here for list of race run by IMRA (or IHRA as it was previously known) up to 2000 when the website database takes over. We have the winners to about 85% of these races but full results to only about 60%. These can be identified by the left hand column. It is hoped in the near future links will be available to these. If in the meantime you have copies of the missing results I would be very interested in receiving them. It is of interest that two runners from the earliest races (no not the 1870 Sugarloaf race) are still regularly hillrunning, Wally Young and Caitlin Bent.