Up the east face of the holy mountain
The pilgrim path from Faha
From the Faha Grotto a kilometre outside Cloghane, a path climbs the eastern flank of Mount Brandon past a string of corrie lakes — paternoster lakes, the glaciologists call them, beads on a thread — and up onto the ridge. The summit holds Séipéilín Bréanainn, the remains of a stone oratory that pilgrims have been climbing to since the early Christian centuries. It is nine kilometres return and four to five hours if the weather behaves. It often does not. People come off this mountain wet, lost or both several times a year. Bring a map you can read in cloud.
The Saint’s Road ends here
Cosán na Naomh
The medieval pilgrim road from Ventry on the south coast of the peninsula runs eighteen kilometres north over the spine of Corca Dhuibhne and finishes at Ballybrack, a kilometre up the road from Cloghane. Pilgrims walked it for centuries, said a prayer at Saint Brendan’s Oratory in Ballybrack, then turned and went up the western face of the mountain. The waymarked national trail stops at the grotto now — the route to the summit was deemed too risky to mark. The pilgrims who finish it properly still keep going.
Pattern Day, last Sunday in July
Domhnach Crom Dubh
The Cloghane and Brandon Pattern is held on the last Sunday in July. Mass at the parish church, music in O’Connor’s afterwards, the whole parish out for it. The Christian name for the day is Domhnach Crom Dubh, and the saint involved is meant to be Brendan, but the festival is older than the church. Lughnasadh — the harvest Sunday of the god Lugh — was held on the same weekend across Ireland for two thousand years. People climbed Brandon then and they climb it now and the calendar has not really moved.
Standing at the corner of the peninsula
The view from Brandon Point
Drive the road out past Brandon village to where it ends at Brandon Point. The cliffs there look west across the mouth of Brandon Bay to the tip of the peninsula at Slea Head, and on a clear day the Blasket Islands sit on the horizon like a low cloudbank that refuses to move. It is one of the few places on the north shore where you see the whole arc of the bay and the mountain at once. There is a small car park and a path. Bring a coat. The wind here has come a long way.