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We are a group of rock-climbers based in Derry, Northern Ireland. We
go climbing in Counties Derry, Donegal and Antrim, and many other places
in the north and south of Ireland. This website is designed to do three
things:
Climbing mainly takes place in Co. Donegal, but as you will see, our members go climbing all over the world. You can see photos from such far-flung spots as Canada, Nepal, Tibet, South America, China, France, Italy and Switzerland as well as Derry, Donegal, Inishowen, Fairhead, Sligo and Tyrone. Anyone can join the club - don't wait for us to ask. For further details, contact Anthony Feeney (Club Sec.) |
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Donegal Climbfest 2010The 2010 ClimbFest will take place on Cruit Island, Donegal over the May bank holiday weekend from Friday 30th April - Monday 3rd May. Camping will be on the flat ground by the beach on the right of the road shortly after crossing the bridge from the mainland. Climbing will take place all over the island but a good starting point will be the largish beach just north of the campsite. There will be a daily ferry service from the pier at the north of the island to Owey island as well, which offers excellent climbing and the potential for lots of new routing. There may be trips to Gola island as well to be confirmed nearer the time. We'll have portaloos and toilet tents too but you'll have to bring plenty of your own cooking / drinking water. You may be able to beg some off Cruit Golf Club or some of the wee pubs just out the Glenties road. Cruit Golf Club beside the pier at the north of the island has a very hospitable barman called Jimmy who tells us there are no privacy / membership rules at all at the clubhouse, so no problem using the bar and facilities (i.e. toilet) as long as you're a paying customer. There may be food available at the bar too if you don't fancy eating pot noodles round the campfire (again). For washing you can always take a dip in the nearby sea. :) There'll be tshirts again this year and topos. Costs for registration will be a one-off fee of €15 which will include your topo and camping, no matter how many nights you stay. Tshirts will be €10. Colmcille Climbfest 2009 Fleeces are still available to purchase from Anthony Feeney at a price of £20
There is now a separate Climbfest website at www.climbfest.co.uk. Bring your bucket, spade and surf board, as this little explored westerly part of Ireland has fine beaches and good surf. Bring the kids, why not? Colmcille Climbers will be on hand to guide you to and tell you about the crags. Colmcille Climbers: Climbing Ireland! This fire drawing was made by Valli Schafer for the 2007 Climbfest. The model is on the right! |
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Here are a few random links to take you to various pages that may be of interest. One of our most popular crags is Dunmore Head in Inishowen, Donegal in north west Ireland. This is because the rock is good quality, the climbs are short and the crag is easily accessible from the road. Have a look at some photos of Dunmore Head or read about a trip or two to Dunmore Head or here or here and there are plenty more trip reports in our online interactive climbing logbook.
We have an online climbing photo gallery with over 1000 photos, and an online Donegal Climbing guidebook where climbers can log new routes that they have climbed in Donegal, republic of Ireland. It is expected that this online guidebook will be built into a valuable database resource for future guidebook authors to access. If you do visit Donegal to climb then you should not miss our Climbfest in the Spring. After the success of the 2005 Climbing Festival in Culdaff we want to maintain this as a regular event each year. In 2005 we climbed and bouldered mostly in Culdaff or around the Inishowen peninsula (Kinnego Bay, Port a Doris, Dunowen, Crummies Bay, Malin Head etc). In coming years we would like to show climbers other sites that Donegal has to offer, for example, Eglish Valley, Barnesmore Gap, Malin Beg, Muckros Head, Glencolumbcille, Downings, Rocky Gap, Poison Glen, Belshade, Bingorm, Lough Barra, Muckish etc.
Ice climbing in Donegal is something that isn't often possible, so a page or two that look at Irish ice-climbing are here and here. The problem with Ireland is that the climate is very mild and damp. We get Gulf stream warming and nearly all our weather comes from the Atlantic i.e. south-westerly winds laden with rain. But the country looks the way it does (Emerald Isle and all that) because of the rain and wind, so we shouldn't complain.
Membership of the club is open to anyone, we have members living in Galway and others in Ballymena and Portstewart - we're not just restricted to Derry and Donegal (though Derry is where we tend to congregate). We also welcome members of all nationalities and genders; we've often taken visiting climbers out with us when they have been here on holiday. We still keep in touch with "country members" in Australia, Spain, Holland, Canada, England, Scotland, Wales and other places. Derry has a university (University of Ulster at Magee) and a busy technical college, so attracts students from all over Europe - joining the Colmcille Climbers gives them a perfect way to meet some locals, see the country and get some great climbing. Many Colmcillers are more than happy to pick up and drop off a car-less student on the way to the crag.
Irish Climbing is nearly all traditional with very few bolts (or even pegs/pitons) in evidence. That's not to say the boundaries remain unpushed - the Mournes boasts an E10 (Divided Years climbed by John Dunne, repeated by Dave Birkett) and Irish climbers have reached sports routes grades as high as 8a. Climbing in Ireland is concentrated around the coastal areas (as are the mountains) with little happening in the midlands. If you are coming a long way to climb in Ireland, you could start in Donegal, head east to Fairhead and then the Mournes, south to Dalkey and Wicklow, west to Kerry and the Burren, and then north back to Donegal (and spend the last week of your fortnight where you started!) because there's more variety and crags here than the rest of the 32 counties.
So it's not just Clare, Dublin, Kerry, Antrim and Down, mountaineering and climbing are alive and well in Donegal. Come and see!
RSS is a format for syndicating news and the content of websites that have regularly updated content. It means that other webmasters can pull content from this site and display it as links in their pages. The Colmcille RSS feed carries a link for the most recently added route, photo and log report aswell as a random link. As it develops it will also have other links - send your ideas! 
Andy Tees, Julie Sittlington, Donna and Marty Ryan, James Boyle, Bill Magowan, Phil Magill, Anthony Feeney, Marty McGuigan
Caption Comp Summer 2009
