Story Pop: Slieve Donard, NI - Revenge of the Calleach

In this episode of Off You Pop, we head to the east coast of Northern Ireland to explore the story behind Slieve Donard, the highest peak in the Mourne Mountains at 2,790 feet.
This is the world that shapes the climb: the granite heart of the Mournes, the Ice Age valleys, the legends of saints and giants, and the human history carved into the stone.

We follow the Donard Park approach along the Glen River, past the 19th‑century Ice House, and into the high saddle where the Mourne Wall rises toward the summit.
We dive into the geology of the Mourne granite batholith, the formation of the U‑shaped valleys, and the ancient cairns that crown the peak.
We explore the story of Saint Donard, the hermit‑guardian of the mountain, the winter-hag ("The Calleach"), and the stonemasons who built the 22‑mile Mourne Wall by hand between 1904 and 1922.

If you’ve climbed Donard, this episode will feel like stepping back into a place you know.
If you haven’t, consider this your guide to the stories written into the granite.

www.blisterpopadventures.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

This is Off You Pop, the podcast for hikers and adventurers who want to be epic in just one day. The Mourne Mountains feel like they're holding the entire east coast of Ireland in the palm of their hand. Today we're climbing Sleeve Denard, the highest peak in Northern Ireland at 2,790 feet, rising straight from the sea like a stone guardian. We're taking the classic route from Donard Park, following the Glen River, passing the old ice house, climbing into the saddle between Denard and Commandar, and finishing on the summit where the Morn Wall meets the sky. This is the story behind the mountain, the geology, the history, the legends, the wall, the people who built it and the land that shaped it. Now off you pop. Slieve Dinard and the Mourns are built from granite, formed deep underground around 56 million years ago, during the Paleogene period. This granite didn't erupt. It cooled slowly beneath the surface, forming huge crystalline blocks. Over millions of years, the softer rock above eroded away, leaving the rounded domes and steep sided valleys we see today. The morns are a granite batholith, a massive underground intrusion that pushed up through older Silurian and Ordovician rocks. That's why the mountains have such a distinctive look. Smooth whale-backed summits, steep glacially carved valleys, massive boulder fields, clean exposed slabs of pale granite. During the last ice age, glaciers carved the Glen Valley into a deep U shape, leaving behind the polished rocks, erratics, and steep sides you walk through on the Donald Park approach. Sleeve Denard itself is a classic granite dome, a mountain built from pressure, heat, and time. The morns have been lived in, worked in, and mythologized for thousands of years. Neolithic and Bronze Age communities left cairns, standing stones and burial sites across the range. Sleeve Denard's summit, Cairn, is believed to be a Bronze Age burial mound, later Christianized and tied to local saints. The mountain's name came from Saint Denard, a 5th century follower of Saint Patrick. Legend says he lived as a hermit on the mountain and turned the summit into a place of prayer. Some stories claim he never died, he simply transformed into a guardian spirit of the peak. For centuries, the morns were a place of sheep grazing, stone cutting, quarrying, smuggling roots, and turf cutting. The mountains fed the towns below and shaped the culture of the region. The Mourne Wall is one of the most impressive human made structures in any mountain range in Europe. Built between 1904 and 1922, the wall stretches twenty two miles across fifteen peaks, including Donard. It was constructed by hand, every stone cut, lifted and placed by stonemasons working in brutal conditions. Why build it? To protect the Silent Valley Reservoir which supplies water to Belfast. The wall marked the boundary of the catchment area and kept livestock out. The craftsmanship is extraordinary. Dry stone construction, no mortar, perfect curvature over summits, still standing after a century of storms. When you reach the saddle between Denard and Commandar and see the wall rising towards the summit, it feels like stepping into a piece of living history. On the Donard Park approach, just above the Glen River, you pass the remains of the Donard Ice House. Built in the eighteen thirties by the Annesley family, it was used to store winter ice collected from the river and nearby ponds. The ice was packed with straw and used throughout the year for food preservation, calling drinks, medical purposes, and high society events in the seaside town of Newcastle. It's a reminder that these mountains weren't just wild spaces, they were part of a working estate, a living landscape. Sleeve Denard is a mountain wrapped in stories. Saint Denard's transformation Some legends say he became a giant, guarding the coast. Others say he became a pillar of flame on the summit. Others say he simply walked into the mountain and never returned. The Calitch As in many Irish ranges, the Calich, the winter hag goddess, is said to shape storms in the morns. Her presence is strongest on the high peaks, where sudden weather changes are common. The Morn Giants Local folklore speaks of giants who once roamed the range, shaping the valleys and tossing boulders across the land. The rounded granite domes fit the imagery, mountains that look like the backs of sleeping titans. So let's get on the pop. So to get to Sleeve Dinard, you can take a flight to either Dublin or Belfast, and then drive to the seaside town of Newcastle. On my adventure this was my second peak of the day, and I had begun it in Southern Ireland at Carantou Hill, another hoarding place of the Calich. I'd driven five and a half hours across the beautiful green rolling hills of Ireland to make my way in early afternoon to the seaside town of Newcastle. The jarring bustle of the seaside town was a far cry from the rolling hills of Ireland and Northern Ireland that I had just driven by. And you make your way into Donard Park, a local recreation area filled with tennis courts and dog walkers, and that sort of energy you get from folks who are out to enjoy early afternoon out in the park. And so I got my hiking gear ready and it was already raining, and so I put on my waterproof gear, got my pack ready, and began the climb. So the climb begins in Donard Park, and you follow the trail up toward the mountains. It's a wide, crushed gravel trail that quickly leads you into a forest. There's no climbing to begin with, but soon you reach the deep rudded forest ground that's filled with roots and trees that runs above the Glen River. After a very short, muddy segment, you reach a road and a bridge, and you cross the river onto the other side and begin the climb in earnest. It feels like you're in a rich, dense, lush, tropical paradise with flowering rhododendrons dotting the peak and endless waterfalls running down the canyon you're about to climb. The canyon and the trail are very well maintained. They are the steps that make up the trail are made from twisted logs that are placed unevenly. The unevenness makes it difficult for you to keep a rhythm. And down here in the valley it's hot and warm. But the day is young, and as you slowly climb, you cannot be helped but be amazed by the endless waterfalls roaring down from the mountain, the Glen River that flows into the sea. And it feels like a different world, like a manicured world, almost like Appalachia. But soon you're climbing up into a forest, and on your left there's a piece of clear cut forest where local loggers have taken to the forest. I'm sure this is manicured and farmed forest, but it brings you into bright daylight, and the rain eases off a little, and you cross another bridge, another substantial stone bridge, and standing there you look up into the forest, and you see another waterfall. Once back on the trail, I started to see people for the first time. People who are out there enjoying the afternoon and a stroll up into the morns. People who are enjoying the afternoon and a stroll up into the morns. And the trail flattens out, but becomes a little confusing as you make your way as you make your way into what was the leftovers of a bog. Now it's fairly flat and you can make good time as you rise above this the city of Newcastle, and you start for the first time to see the Irish sea below you. And here the forest changes. It becomes evergreen. There's a tall stand of straight pines to your right, and as you follow up, you begin to enter into the morns. I came to a gate and entered through it, and on the other side were three young men, of Northern Irish descent, at least that's why I assume from their thick Northern Irish accents, and they were excited to talk to me. They were letting me know that they'd just made the ascent and descent up Sleeve Denard in two and a half hours. I thought this was great because I needed to make good time so I could make it to Dublin later that evening for my flight. I let them know I was doing the UK six peaks and I'd just come from Southern Ireland and was planning to do Ben Nevis tomorrow. They asked me if I was a fast hiker, and I reassured them I was. I think they were hoping I would challenge their time and unfortunately my ego got the best of me, and in the back of my mind I was thinking about this two and a half hour time that they had set. Of course I didn't know if they meant two and a half hours from the point they were sitting or from the parking lot back in Newcastle. But I said my farewells and made my way into this vast open landscape shaped by glaciers, and now the world was opening up. But the trail was flat and it was well maintained and laid with granite, flat granite stones. And as you come up the valley you start to climb above the Glen River roaring below you. And off to the left on the other side of the valley is the ruins of the old ice house peeking out from the ferns and looking like it was still fully operational. It had not been left to ruin and was still fully intact. And as you continue the world opens up, and far above you you see Sleeve Denard towering above the valley below. On the opposite side of the bank, a pack of wild horses are grazing in the lush green grass below the summit. And more hikers are coming down toward you. And the rain starts again. And it's gentle and it's soft and it's warm, but it's enough to remind you that the weather's real and you're out in the wilderness. And quickly you come to another fence which marks the boundary of the morns. A signpost alerts you of the fact, and you are suddenly in the mountains. And the trail you can see the trail leading up through the valley and up to the ridge which will take you up to the Morn Wall and to Sleeve Denard. And the trail is easy and flat, but slowly, slowly begins to climb up into this bowl of the wondrous Morn Mountains, these big rounded giants set before you. And the rain eases off, and I start to get warm again. It's on again, off again rain the whole way. And as you get closer and closer to the saddle, you begin to realize the first real climb of the day is coming. And so I decided I had to beat the boys, and so I didn't stop, and I just got into the climb, which was just a very simple traverse up to the ridge. But boy was I getting hot. The warm sun was beaten down, the clouds had opened up, and although the trail was never treacherously steep, it certainly worked the lungs. And halfway up I was covered in sweat, and I stopped to pause as some other hikers came down, and they asked me why I was so wet. I think they assumed it was the rain, but I let them know it was my sweat. And you keep going up and up and up until you reach the saddle. And then when you reach the saddle, suddenly you're blasted by cold wind whipping across the top of the morns, and there it is the morn wall. This endless line of granite rock that follows the contours of the tops of the peaks. To the right is the peak of Komedar, not the way you want to go, and to the left the peak of Sleevdenard. The rain starts coming down heavily, and I see hunkered beneath the wall is a young lady, obviously trying to keep out of the wind and the rain, and I make my way over to her, just to confirm that indeed Sleevdenard is to the left and Commodar is to the right. She confirms it is, and she corrects my pronunciation. Denard is up there, she says in a gruff Northern Irish accent, and I thank her and begin the climb, ever conscious of the young men's boast, thinking that I could probably beat their time. But the line to Sleeve Denard is steep, the wall is straight, but the climb is relentless. As I begin the climb, there are stones that have been laid to make it easier, but it doesn't change the grade. I'm feeling tired. I've been up since one hundred thirty AM, climbed the tallest peak in Ireland, driven five and a half hours across the island, and somehow forgotten to eat, and it was starting to wear. My legs were feeling tired. The rain was getting heavier, the wind was whipping. As I stopped and turned around to see the morn splayed out before me, in the distance I see the rumbling, dark, menacing clouds of rainstorm moving towards me relentlessly, and it's an ominous sign of the weather predictions that there may be thunderstorms today. The Kalich has come to show me who's boss, and I'm at the last ascent, but I am spent. I decide to take a quick break. I sit on a cold rock, get some snacks out of my pack, eat a banana and an orange, and an energy bar, and I feel renewed, and I continue the climb one step after the other, up and up. But the weather isn't letting up. In fact it's getting worse. And as I crest the top, I see the corner of the wall, which is built with a cairn that marks various points along the morne wall. And you pop up and there's the cairn, Saint Denard's burial place, way above the land, and you stand and you take in the view, but the storm is on you. The wind is coming in, the rain is coming down, and you're getting chilled. But below you are the morns, below you is the valley, and in the distance the Irish sea stretching out before you, and it's a glorious sight. And despite the fact that the storm is coming in, you can't stop but take a moment and admire the views of the tallest mountain in Northern Ireland. I quickly turn tail, afraid of the storm, and begin the ascent back into the valley. The stones down by the path make the ascent slick, and so I'm careful as I go back down, following closely to the wall, and encounter some other hikers on their way up, and I reassure them that they're nearly there. But I'm trying to make fast time. So I'm going down, down, down, and quickly I'm back at the saddle, looking up at Commodar and looking down at the valley. I quickly make my way across, and the rain eases off as I enter into the traverse that leads me depth down into the Glen River Valley. I loosen my raincoat and the sun comes out and starts to warm me. And as I'm descending, there are other folks that are coming up the mountain. A group of a dozen or so young folks with heavy backpacks making their way up the ascent. And quickly I'm back in the warm valley and traversing back down, back down to the gate where I met the young boys. They're no longer there. They've gone on their way to another hiking challenge, and back through the gate. And quickly I'm back into the forest, back into the warm, lush and manicured forest. But my feet are starting to hurt. It's been three hours. I don't know if that means I beat them or not, but I know there's at least another half hour to the car. I'm desperate to make it in fifteen minutes, and I don't know why. But I hurry on through, through the forest, and back to those impossibly irregular steps that have been formed through the lush forest, stopping occasionally to admire the waterfalls, and then I'm jarringly back in Donard Park. My hike is over. I'm back to the car, back to reality. I strip off my wet clothes, get ready for the airport, pack up my bag and my stuff, ready for a quick transfer, onto a flight, and onward to the next hike. Now this is sleeved and hard, and this has been off you pop.