Anniversary Celebration

 TYNDALL MOUNTAIN CLUB CELEBRATES 40 YEARS OF CLIMBING

There was a large attendance of club members in the Kilkenny Castle Park last Saturday to mark the 40th Anniversary of Tyndall Mountain Club, Kilkenny. 

Chairperson Irene Burke welcomed Mayor David Fitzgerald, all present and made particular mention of some of the descendants of the Tyndall family who were there for the occasion. The mayor was then tasked with the cutting the ribbon on a newly planted Quercus Robur native oak tree. Irene thanked Colm Mangan of the OPW for his help, guidance and co-operation during the course of planning the event.

Next was the unveiling of a specially commissioned bench,

when Martin O'Reilly, first Chairperson of the club, officiated. He told us how the club formed in 1981 and regaled the crowd with anecdotes, the club's history and hiking exploits down through the years. Kevin Higgins, also a founder member, recalled the names of deceased members. The brass plaque on the bench is dedicated to past and present members and bears a quote from John Tyndall's 1872 book Forms of Water in Clouds and Rivers, Ice and Glaciers:

"Should we not meet again, the memory of these days will still unite us"

It was then on to the Club House Hotel for a trip down memory lane, where Kathleen Tuite, club member, displayed a wonderful slide show of the activities of the club since its inception. 

An excellent dinner was then served. Special guest was Frank Nugent, experienced mountaineer, explorer, expedition leader, and published author. He was deputy leader of the successful Irish Mt. Everest expedition 1993 when Dawson Stelfox summitted. He spoke about his many adventures and praised the club for it's zeal and vitality and said  we were lucky to have so many scenic mountain ranges on our doorstep with an abundance of archaeological monuments. To finish, Frank sang the beautiful Ewan MacColl song The Joy of Living.

For information about the club email: tyndallmtclub@gmail.com

(Images to follow)

 

Wales Oct 2022

John Hickey led a group from Tyndall to the lovely national park of Snowdonia Wales, an auld haunt for Tyndall in years gone by.

Day 1

John had 3 walks lined up and he wasted no time for our first walk, hot of the boat and straight to do part of the “Snowdonia Slate Trail” (83 miles full trail) in Llanberis.  We started the walk from our accommodation and had our first glimpse of the famous scarred mountains of the past Slate Mining Industry and the Snowdon Mountain Railway.  We passed the National Slate Museum and Llanberis Lake Railway, after this we started climbing up to the miners hospital and had lovely views of the glacial lake, Llyn Padarn.  

We went to the Miners Cottages in the disused slate quarry where the miners were based each week.  They left their homes on Monday morning & returned home on Saturday afternoons.  Each barracks housed 4 men in a two roomed building with no amenities, closed 1948. 

Day 2

Snowdon

Early rise to catch the bus to Pen y Pass car park.  We took the Pyg Track with signs to Crib Goch (which is a steep ascent to Snowdon, we didn’t take that route!).  There is a track all the way to the top, so we met various levels of walkers on the trail.  On the lower part of the walk, we had lovely views of Llanberis and the other side Llyn Llydaw lake & the towering cliffs of Y Lliwedd.  We traversed under Crib Goch passing the stone marker for the Miners track which we would take on our return.  The summit was masked in cloud, but it didn’t take from the experience and joy of reaching the highest point in the UK outside of Scotland, 1085 meters.