Overlooking Clew Bay from a height of 750 meters (2,500 feet), Croagh Patrick is a mountain on the outskirts of Westport shrouded in mythological lore. Considered the holiest mountain in all of Ireland, it is said that long ago (supposedly around 441 AD), Saint Patrick himself hiked barefoot to the rocky summit to fast and pray in solitude for forty days. On the final day, he channeled all of his meditated, divine energy into a single three-leaf clover and banished every serpent from Ireland to reclaim the green isle from Satan’s influence. So the story goes…

As I stood at the base of Croagh Patrick, reading all this on a plaque under a statue of the clover-wielding Saint Patrick, I allowed myself a private smile at the idea of embarking on this traditional pilgrimage. It was a crisp November morning with a glorious blue sky. What the day lacked in warmth, it more than made up for with cloudless clarity. At the trailhead I met an old man with a wagon full of wooden walking sticks for sale; the donkey he’d used to haul the wagon grazed lazily nearby. Apparently this man (and his donkey) had made a sustainable living simply selling handmade walking sticks to pilgrims on the trail of Saint Patrick. While I didn’t have any money with me to purchase one, the old man still offered me a blessing in a language I assumed to be either Gaelic or Latin. I put my hands together and nodded respectfully in thanks before beginning my hike to the summit.

The trail was decidedly rocky from the start and uphill all the way. It followed a trickling stream for about half a mile, which was pleasant at first, but slowly brought on the realization that there were likely no bathrooms to be found on the treeless mountain. The thought was pushed out of my head as the trail left the streamside and became dramatically steeper. I heard a strange sound up head and found a lone sheep around the next corner tugging at a small, stubborn patch of grass growing between the rocks. He looked at me briefly as I approached, but quickly returned to his breakfast. I gave him a gentle pat as I walked by, and he muttered a halfhearted “Maaaah” in response.

I consider myself to be in pretty good shape, but even so, barely half an hour into the hike I felt thoroughly winded. I stopped to look behind me and could still clearly see the old man and his donkey below, along with a couple new hikers quickly catching up to me. Feeling all of a sudden unnecessarily competitive, I stripped my jacket off and began jogging my way up the trail. After what seemed like ages, I reached a narrow plateau that offered a scenic view of Clew Bay on one side and a small lake on the other. The lake was surrounded by rock formations spelling out people’s names, people who had must have painstakingly carried and placed dozens of stones to make words ten-yards long.

I rested on a pile of rocks and drank greedily from my water bottle as I soaked in the views and mid-morning sunshine. I saw a squat stone structure nearby and hiked over to inspect it. It was a primitive latrine, made entirely out of stone, with what looked like a small water fountain inside. Due to the indecisive signage, I decided not to top off my water bottle there.

I exited the structure and was frightened half to death by a loud “Maaaaah” as I walked straight into a sheep. I looked down the trail and confirmed that this was likely the same sheep from earlier. He seemed to be following me. I retrieved an apple and a pocketknife from my bag and shared a humble meal with my new friend. He pushed his fuzzy little face into my leg affectionately.

Eventually the two hikers behind me caught up and commented on my little friend. They made some jokes about me looking like a Welshman—apparently people from Wales have the unfortunate reputation of romancing their sheep. These were two local guys who apparently made this hike together once a month with the intention of reaching the summit quicker each time. Again feeling unnecessarily competitive, I asked them what their best time was so far, and they responded “one hour and twenty-five minutes.” I looked at my watch and saw that I’d been hiking for about an hour. Challenge accepted.

The summit seemed deceptively close from that plateau, however the trail steadily dissolved into a mass of increasingly larger rocks as the grade of the mountain grew so steep that it warranted clambering hand over foot over. At one point I encountered a young couple with their little dog taking a break on the rocks, all obviously tuckered out by the steep climb. I gave the panting little dog a scratch behind the ears and encouragingly saluted the couple as I clambered onward and upward. Maybe a hundred feet shy of the summit, what little discernable trail there was disappeared all together and left me to throw caution to the wind as I staggered my way up loose footholds with the hopes that I didn’t start some sort of rockslide.

I reached the summit thoroughly out of breath and pouring sweat, but with an overwhelming sense of accomplishment. I had made it to the top in an hour and twenty minutes. The two Irishmen from earlier emerged soon afterward on the opposite side of the mountain from me, beating their own best time by a full three minutes. Apparently I had gone way off trail in my hurry to make it to the top in record time. I asked the Irish guys to take my picture with the island-speckled ocean in the background, and as I posed triumphantly, I heard a familiar “Maaaah” from behind me. The sheep had followed me to the summit, and as he nuzzled his face into my leg I heard the Irishmen erupt in riotous laughter. “We’ve been doing this hike for over twenty years and we’ve never had a sheep stalk us all the way to the top!”

There was a small white chapel on top of the mountain, unfortunately quite unattractive, but impressive nonetheless due to its remote location. I learned from my fellow hikers that all the wood, brick, and cement had been brought by helicopter and that the construction and upkeep of the small chapel bordered on six figures. I sat on the stone steps and shared another apple with my fuzzy faced friend and looked out in awe over the sprawling Atlantic. Eventually, I circumspectly made my way back down the rocks to the midway plateau in the trail.

The sun was still high in the sky, so I decided to make my way down to the small lake I’d seen to immortalize my name in stone. This was no easy feat. The lake was surrounded only by grassy meadow, with the nearest unused stones being a couple hundred yards away (I had too much respect to steal stones that spelled out other peoples’ names). It took me well over an hour of hauling and placing rocks before I was satisfied with my efforts. I saw a couple people looking down at me from the trail above and I shouted at them if they could read what I’d spelled. “DOES IT SAY NOG?” one of them responded. I shouted back that it was supposed to say “NOLEN,” but they just yelled back at me “LOOKS LIKE NOG!”. I quickly rearranged a few stones to enlarge a couple of the letters and heard an echoing call from above, “AY! SAYS NOLEN!” I jogged my way back to the plateau in the trail and looked down at my handy work. My name was much smaller than I expected in comparison to the other names, but I was nevertheless happy with the result. NOLEN was now a permanent part of the Croagh Patrick landscape.

That night, Agnes’ husband and son took me out for drinks. It seemed that I’d achieved some local right of passage by climbing Croagh Patrick. They would proudly proclaim my achievement at each pub we went to. The guys seemed to know pretty much everyone at every pub, making me realize that Westport, despite its understated fame, really was just a small, remote town. Following the example of nearly every person in the first pub, I ordered a Guinness and a sifter of whiskey. I quickly learned of a certain drinking custom in authentic Irish pubs—drinks don’t stop coming until you expressly tell the bartender to stop pouring. Before one of my glasses was even half depleted, the bartender would place a full replacement behind it. This was the big leagues, and I was among the world champions of social drinkers. I found myself again having difficulty understanding the locals. I’m no scientist, but there seemed to be a strong negative correlation between the volume of alcohol consumed and the number of consonants being used in Irish sentences. When someone would say something completely indecipherable, I would respond with the tried and true “Eh,” accompanied by raised eyebrows, a subtle nod, and a slight shrug. This seemed to be an appropriate response to just about everything. But as always, I eventually found things to talk and laugh about with these new people.

After a long day and a seemingly longer night, I was immeasurably grateful to finally crawl into bed. Westport had treated me well, and I was starting to feel very comfortable there. But it was for that exact reason that I knew it was time to move on.