Croagh Patrick: The Atlantic Tabor

If you ever find yourself travelling along the R310 from north to south in County Mayo, Ireland, you can observe to your right a mountain that appears to be a perfect pyramid on the horizon. That mountain is Croagh Patrick (Irish: Cruach Phádraig, lit. 'Saint Patrick's stack', also nicknamed 'the Reek') the most significant holy mountain of modern Ireland. An impressive pyramid of quartzite rock, Croagh Patrick rises in grand simplicity to a height of 764m above the Atlantic Ocean near Westport, Co. Mayo in the Republic of Ireland. Dominating the landscape of Clew Bay, the peak's conical point offers panoramic views of the surrounding area, including a spectacular aerial overview of the hundreds of small, green drumlin islands resembling half-drowned hills that dot the bay, sculpted and left afloat by glacial action in the last ice age. Though only the 11th highest mountain in Ireland, Croagh Patrick has long been regarded as a sacred mountain due to the luminescence of its bright quartzite peak that dazzles the eye from afar on bright days, and due to its uncanny symmetrical conical shape, both to the Christians of modern Ireland and their pagan ancestors of days gone by. These physical peculiarities perhaps led the sociologist Patrick Claffey to compare the Reek with Tabor, a similarly conical mountain in Galilee where the Transfiguration of Christ was thought to have taken place which has itself long been a pilgrimage site for Christians.

The Reek from Roman Island, Westport.

View of Clew Bay from the way up the mountain.

Paganism and Sun Worship

The Kildangan megalithic complex with Croagh Patrick towering in the background.

Before the arrival of Christianity, the mountain was the focus of an extensive pagan ritual landscape during the Bronze Age and earlier. There is a huge volume of archaeological evidence that suggests a long pre-Christian history of ritual, ceremonial and defensive uses associated with the mountain. the presence of man-made tombs, cairns, standing stones and ritual ponds with the mountain always in clear view suggests the symbolic imagery and veneration of the mountain as a key consideration of these constructions. 

The extraordinary phenomenon of the rolling sun down the slope of Croagh Patrick by Ken Williams.

    One of the most significant examples of these is the Boheh Stone, later Christianised as "St. Patrick's Chair", a Neolithic rock art site dated to 3,800 BCE, pre-Celtic in Irish history. Some elaboration on the link between the Boheh rock art site and Croagh Patrick is worthwhile. Boheh is one of three monolithic sites along the Tochar Phadraig, the main Christian pilgrimage route that runs between Ballintubber Abbey in the east to the summit of the mountain. In the absence of textual evidence pertaining to the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, there is some speculation that the Tochar was originally a pre-Christian pilgrimage route that was later Christianised when the mountain became associated with St. Patrick. From the perspective of Boheh on every 18th of April and 24th of August, one can bear witness to the extraordinary "rolling sun" spectacle (coined by Westport historian Gerry Bracken) whereby the sun appears to roll down the side of the summit in an uncannily symmetrical arc as it sets. This is not the only ritual site from which such a spectacle can be viewed. There is another megalithic site at Kildangan comprised of four standing stones aligned with a small niche in the eastern shoulder of Croagh Patrick. At 1.45pm on the winter solstice (21 December), the Sun appears to set in this small niche, a phenomenon that lasts for about 10 minutes. The orientation of these ritual sites towards the mountain and the perspectival anomalies associated with some of them collectively suggest the connection of the mountain to pre-Christian Sun worship.

St. Patrick's Oratory atop Croagh Patrick.

    The association of Croagh Patrick with Sun worship is additionally supported by syncretic traditions involving the time and manner of Christian pilgrimage. The Celts previously associated Croagh Patrick with the deity Crom Dubh, as well as the principal site of Lughnasa, the festival celebrating the start of the harvest in the Irish Celtic calendar. As late as 1968, the annual pilgrimage to the top of the Reek was performed at night. And even today, the pilgrimage is performed on the last Sunday of July, which coincides with Lughnasa. Since the Sun is a necessary agent in precipitating the fertility of the earth, it has been suggested that the ancient practice of climbing the mountain by night and watching the Sun rise after a night-climb implies a relationship between the sun and the mountain. Archaeological remains of dozens of circular Bronze Age huts abutting the summit, as well as the remains of a Celtic hill fort encircling the summit suggests a pre-Christian pilgrim network that incorporated the mountain as a centre of sun worship.

St. Patrick and Reek Sunday

Statue of St. Patrick at the head of the pilgrim trail in Murrisk.

The official basis for the current Catholic veneration of Croagh Patrick is its association with St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. The earliest textual association between St. Patrick and the mountain comes from the Collectanea of the 7th century Irish bishop Tírechán. He tells us that:

And Patrick proceeded to Mons Aiglí, intending to fast there for forty days and forty nights, following the example of Moses, Elias, and Christ. ~ Tírechán, Collectanea, translated by L. Bieler, 38:1.

A brief biography of St. Patrick is in order. Patrick was born in Britain in the late 4th century to a Romano-British family. Captured by Irish pirates and sold into slavery in his teenage years, he later escaped to continental Europe where he took monastic vows at the monastery of St. Martin of Tours in France. Deeply affected by the Christian missionary zeal that was prevalent in the first century since the Constantinian Shift, Patrick decided to return to Ireland - the land of his captivity - to convert the Celtic Pagans and their druids. Arriving in Ireland in 432CE, Patrick spent nearly three decades wandering the countryside, proseltysing to local people and establishing churches and monasteries upon many Druidic sacred sites, which had themselves been founded on top of even older Neolithic megalithic complexes.

    The legend of St. Patrick was developed in several stages over the last centuries of the first millennium. The most popular legend can be summarised as such: In 441CE, he climbed to the top of Croagh Patrick, then known as Cruach Aigle ("the eagle's peak/stack") and spent the 40 days of Lent praying and fasting as part of his mission to convert the Irish to Christianity. During this time, he was tormented by a demonic female serpent called Corra or Caorthannach. At the end of his fast, St. Patrick threw a black bell off the mountainside into Lough Na Corra, banishing all the demons, serpents and other noxious creatures that assailed him from the country at the sounding his sacred bell. 

    There is a good chance that St. Patrick did indeed ascend the mountain. There is archaeological evidence of a stone chapel or oratory built on the summit that dates to the 5th century. Given the predominance of the Reek as a pre-Christian sun worship site, St. Patrick would have found a good justification to consecrate this druidic landscape as part of his evangelical efforts. After all, Patrick himself wrote in his Confessions that "all those who adore that sun will come to a bad, miserable penalty." It is thus reasonable to suggest that St. Patrick climbed Croagh Patrick to contend with that god (the Sun) that was in competition to his own, and that the banishment of serpents could be understood as a metaphor for the banishment of paganism from Ireland.

    As for the Irish Catholic pilgrimage up to Croagh Patrick, the first textual mention we have for it comes from the 12th century. According to the Annals of Loch Cé, in 1113:

A thunderbolt fell of Cruachan Aighle, on the night of the festival of Patrick, which destroyed thirty of the fasting people. ~ Annals of Loch Cé, LC1113.1, translated by William M. Henessy.

Nevertheless, given the presence of an oratory on the summit since near St. Patrick's own lifetime and the mountain's long history as a pagan pilgrimage site, the Christian pilgrimages up Croagh Patrick likely began much earlier than the 12th century.

    On the last Sunday of July (known as Reek Sunday), up to 40,000 pilgrims ascend the sacred mountain in honour of Saint Patrick, where masses are held at a chapel on the summit built in 1905. In its current form, the pilgrimage begins around sunrise at the foot of the mountain near the ruins of Murrisk Abbey. The climb to the summit and back is roughly 7km with an elevation gain of 750m. A small fraction of pilgrims make the climb barefooted as an act of penance for some, and as a form of one-up-manship to distinguish themselves from other pilgrims for others. Some pilgrims also traditionally performed 'rounding rituals' when ascending, a form of circumambulation where pilgrims would pray walking sunwise around three Neolithic cairns on the mountain that serve as penitential stations. 

Two videos documenting the Reek Sunday pilgrimages up to Croagh Patrick decades apart, in 1964 and in 1996:

Current Trends and Conservational Issues

As Ireland has been increasingly secularising in the past few decades, less and less climbers come with spiritual or penitential. Of the 120,000 people who make the climb annually, pilgrims only comprise a marginal fraction of these. The main motivational factors that inspire local hikers and tourists alike to make the climb include physical challenges, feelings of catharsis, a secular sense of history and tradition, and the beautiful scenery. The shift in motivation for climbing the mountain from being a penitential ritual towards being a personal challenge related to a personal value system reflects ongoing trends in the decline of religiosity not only in Ireland, but across much of Western Europe. With regard to these changes, many modern backpackers and thru-hikers do indeed frame their wilderness treks as spiritual experiences, part of an alternate trend whereby the conventionally Western distinction between the external world of objects and events and the inner world of spirituality and religion have become increasingly ambiguous.

The summit cone of Croagh Patrick viewed from the south. Significant erosion scarring of the pilgrimage trail is visible even from afar. With a width in excess of 30m at its widest parts, the path is actively intruding on ecologically sensitive areas on the scree slopes.

    Nevertheless, the huge influx of visitors to the mountain have resulted in many negative environmental impacts. The most notable of these are path erosion, overcrowding, littering, graffiti, and ecological concerns regarding the admittance of dogs on the mountain off lead where farm animals are present. Croagh Patrick currently does not have any statutory or legal conservation protection or status, which has exacerbated the negative environmental fallout from visitors. On a positive note, local environmentalists successfully lobbied the Mayo County Council to forbid gold mining on the mountain in the 1980s, after a seam of gold valued at over €300m was discovered in the mountain's core. Moreover, in July 2022, Mayo County Council in collaboration with Leave No Trace Ireland and the Croagh Patrick Stakeholders Group have announced an ambassadorship program that intends to spread public awareness surrounding these conservational issues and educate the public on conservational methods and the historical and natural significance of the site. It seems that though religiosity is on the wane, environmental ethics is stronger than ever, sometimes incorporating elements of spirituality into its ethos. That the movers and shakers of society were willing to forego the prospect of economic profits to conserve this geographical landform and its constituent ecosystems is a triumph of humanity's innate reverence of their natural surroundings and an acknowledgement of humanity's essential oneness with nature - something that the conventional Western worldview has long separated and stratified.