Lentorama 2021: Take Your Holiday to Go

Day 7: Reek Sunday

This Irish holiday sees pilgrims climb the highest mountain in the country, Croagh Patrick (which is nicknamed The Reek, hence the name of the day), in honor of St. Patrick, who is said to have spent forty days on its summit fasting and praying. Some pilgrims climb barefoot as an additional act of penance, while others practice a "rounding ritual" where they circle various features a number of times. 

It's estimated that the climb has been held annually for at least 1500 years, though there's evidence that the climb has much earlier, pagan origins (like almost every other Christian holiday or festival) connected to Lughnasa, the start of the harvest season.

The climb up takes a couple of hours, probably due more to the number of climbers (which can be up to 30,000) than the mountain's height (764 meters, which is just over 2500 feet). Considering the mountain has about 100,000 climbers annually, you can imagine how busy things get on this one day. So if you're ever in County Mayo on the last Sunday of July, you've either got a lot of climbing buddies or a reason to do something else, if you're not into crowds.