A pair of climbers believe they have charted a new route scaling the face of Sybil Head, after they successfully completed a 385m-long ascent at the Co Kerry seacliffs earlier this month.
Colin Struthers and David Ormerod, experienced climbers based in the north of England, made the 11-hour climb from sea level on Saturday, scaling the headland’s main ridge to reach its highest point.
“The climb is magnificent,” Mr Struthers (65) said, speaking to The Irish Times this week. “I hesitate to big myself up too much, but I’ve been climbing for 40 years, and this is one of the finest things I’ve ever done.”
Sybil Head – Ceann Sibéal in Irish – is located on the Dingle Penninsula, and offers views of the nearby Blasket Islands. It was a filming location for The Last Jedi, a recent instalment of the Star Wars film franchise.
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Various other climbers have previously scaled the cliffs at other locations at the headland, but Mr Struthers believes he and his partner are the first to take this route.
Mr Struthers first became aware of the cliffs at Sybil Head about four years ago following a trip to the region with his wife.
“For the last three years, I’ve been try to get friends who wanted to come all the way across to Dingle to do it with me,” he said.
Mr Struthers said that, for a number of reasons, he believes that he and Mr Ormerod are the first people to take this route up the cliff face. There was no evidence of climbing equipment previously left on the cliff face, no records of route online, and inquiries made with locals – including a local climber – led Mr Struthers to believe that no one had taken this line before them.
Mr Struthers said that the climb, while not technically difficult for the most part, was extreme, given that a potential rescue from the cliffs would require a helicopter. “You could not get a stretcher anywhere along it,” he said.
Reaching the bottom of the cliffs was a task in itself – waters surrounding Sybil Head are too hostile to reach it by boat, Mr Struthers explained. He and his partner instead used ropes to get to the bottom.
Mr Struthers named the route they took up the cliff face “Yer Only Man”, a reference to Flann O’Brien’s At Swim-Two-Birds. It is traditional for climbers to name first ascents.
Two other UK-based climbers, Ginny Douglas and Matt Kemp, joined Mr Struthers and Mr Ormerod in an earlier climb of the cliffs last week, and completed the first part of the ascent before bad weather ended the attempt.
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