I relived the opening scene from The English Patient, flying low and steady over the desert south of Birreencorragh.Sadly the transport wasn't a Tiger Moth, nor was my headpiece particularly Fiennes. The drone was merely the computer's fan, and the windscreen was framing Google Earth software. Still I was drawn back to that morning in June when I stole out at first light and drove on empty roads to the southern base, ascended a wet grassy step, galloped along the spine of the beast that slept at her feet, and then , gloriously, was assumed body and soul onto the heavenly peak. I saw Nephin peeping sheepishly from behind Knockaffertagh, and Lough Conn shimmered and seemed suspended high in the air. To the south west lay Clew bay and the thousand frozen whales stopped momentarily on a seaward trajectory. Alone , without Map, compass, GPS, whistle,food or oxygen; alone on the awesome south face of Birreencorragh :"this most excellent canopy, the
air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical
roof fretted with golden fire". Linkback: https://mountainviews.ie/summit/112/comment/1850/