Stairway to Heaven
The annual Mayo Person of the Year Award is traditionally given to a single individual. In 2024, however, we want to be so bold as to suggest that the award be given to a quartet of Mayo Champions, four men who have built us all a stairway to heaven.
For three years, Bernard Bourke, David Doyle, Frank McMahon and Tulio Pereira de Jesus, under the supervision of Scottish expert Matt McConway, have built a 4km pathway from the base to the summit of Croagh Patrick, County Mayo’s holy mountain.
They built the stairway by moving thousands of tonnes of stone and soil, by hand. They grafted in all weathers, in Mayo weathers which are not like other weathers, hauling rocks, smashing stones, working on their knees, stone by stone, step by step.
Their achievement truly deserves the most singular word: monumental.
Thanks to Tulio, Frank, David and Bernard, the mountain is now more accessible, whilst also being afforded greater protection from erosion caused by the 100,000 walkers, climbers, hikers and penitents who ascend to the summit each year.
Thanks to the men’s monumental labours, we imagine that many people who have heretofore shied away from attempting the 764 metre climb will decide that 2024 is the year when they are going to finally get right to the top, up to the little oratory at the summit, to stand where St Patrick is said to have appeared.
“The religious journey called pilgrimage taps the root, and is perhaps itself the root, of a central motif of European culture, that of the transformative journey.” writes Patrick Joyce in his brilliant new book, Remembering Peasants. Joyce describes Croagh Patrick thus: “The bright quartz and conical shape of the mountain are visible for miles around, just as in prehistoric times.The shape is of a mountain in a dream: the essence of mountain.”
You can see the dream mountain from many of the windows of the Knockranny House Hotel, Geraldine and Adrian Noonan’s family-run hotel, south of the mountain and on the edge of Westport town.
Knockranny is a big hotel, yet its essence is very much what Patrick Joyce would call “a family economy and not a business.” It is charming and modest, and it summons the spirit of County Mayo to itself. It does this literally: you can sit in the Brehon Bar and enjoy a Lough Mask gin, as we did, then go to the restaurant and enjoy the fabulous Roka wines, made in Slovenia, by local residents Liam and Sinead Cabot.
Seamus Commons has been in charge of the kitchens at Knockranny for fifteen years, but he still cooks like a young‘un, whether he is making a char-grilled smash burger with maple and hickory streaky bacon, crispy onions, baby gem lettuce, smoked cheese and the secret house sauce, to be served in the Brehon Bar, or constructing one of his elaborate seasonal game dinners for the La Fougere Restaurant. Seamus is a meticulous, and modest, cook, and the superlative wine list at Knockranny does justice to his food; this is a great list, and offers excellent value for money.
John and Sally were recent guests of Knockranny House Hotel.