At 74 he has climbed Slieve Foy every Sunday since he retired — ʼyou get the whole of Carlingford Lough to yourself in Septemberʼ

Dawn rolls off the lough in a soft, silver breath, and a man in a faded jacket tightens his laces with ritual care.
He is seventy-four, and the hill has become a calendar, each step a bead on the long string of his Sundays.

He sets out while the town still sleeps, trailing a quiet purpose along the hedged lane to the first stile.
The mountain is not tall by global standards, but it is high enough to reorder thoughts.

The path changes with the weather, and he reads it like a friend’s face.
Stone tells him where to edge, bog tells him where to float.

The same hill, a different day

He does not chase a record, only a conversation that deepens by unhurried returns.
“Some Sundays it feels like the whole water is mine,” he laughs, turning his cap into the low breeze.
September is his quiet season, the trails thinned and the lough carrying a hollow echo.

He counts the pulse in the ground, the way gorse lifts a lemon light at mid-morning.
Cloud opens, and Carlingford lies like a sheet of beaten tin, islands of reflection among the cold ripples.

He knows when the ravens will tilt, when the heather trades purple for a rusted bruise.
His map is no longer paper; it’s a web of muscle, breath, and instinctive angles.

Why he keeps going

Retirement left him with hours he could not spend, a silence larger than any week.
“So I filled it with a slope,” he says, smiling with a small, flinty pride.
His doctor calls it excellent exercise, but he calls it his weekly repair.

Grief walks with him sometimes, light as mist and heavy as wet wool.
He lets it pass from calf to thigh, from chest to open air.

Up there, he remembers ordinary days, suddenly precious as chipped china.
He remembers colleagues and the whistle of the kettle, then lets the wind file the memories smooth.

Reading the mountain

He places feet where sheep have taught him, prints overlapping like handshakes.
The mountain is a patient teacher, whispering lessons only repetition can unlock.
Isobars have become a kind of prayer, recited under his breath when the forecast deepens.

There’s a rock shaped like a shoulder, a little spring that always tastes of metal and rain.
He taps the cairn with two knuckles, a greeting kept for years like a private joke.

Solitude, and the people in it

Up high, solitude isn’t a void, it’s a wide room with the door ajar.
He meets dog walkers and Sunday deciders, trading nods that feel like trust.

On the way down, he thinks of the pub’s dark wood, the first sip’s small fire.
But he never lingers past the whisper of evening tide, wanting to leave the hill the way he found it.

What the climb gives

• A moving ritual that steadies a restless mind
• A lesson in limits, and where they can be stretched, gently and safely
• Weather literacy, learned face-first in rain and light
• Kinship with a single place, deeper than any long itinerary
• A quiet pride that asks for no applause, only a packing of the next day’s bag

How he keeps going

He trusts the small habits, not heroic bursts.
Boots dried by the stove, socks turned with a pinch of salt, flask rinsed till the water runs clean.
Stretching at the door, he counts to ten, slow enough to mean it.

“Pick a pace you can speak through,” he advises, “and leave enough breath to say a kind word.”
He carries a map even when the phone shows five bright blue bars, because glass can crack and batteries fade.

He watches for cattle on the lower fields, for sudden fog that eats the first two fences.
He tells younger hikers not to race the sky, because the hill will always be older.

A Sunday in September

Mist lifts like theatre curtain, and the lough becomes a living mirror.
Boats idle far below, stitched to the morning by thin rope and old habits.

He reaches the crest without ceremony, breath warm in the cool air, eyes penciling the tide’s line.
He does not take a triumphant photo, only a slow drink, cap tilted like a quiet salute.

Somewhere a bell folds over the town, and swallows edit the sky with black commas.
He turns for home, letting gravity write its soft answer in knees and careful ankles.

By the gate, he looks back once, as if checking a light before leaving the house.
Another Sunday has been earned, not by speed but by showing up, faithful as the weather and just as tender.