I had been telling people for nearly two years that I had been to Fair Head twice. I was wrong.

WhatsApp groups, photos, and my UKC log all agreed: I had been once, in August 2023. A trip in 2024 was cancelled due to bad weather, and throughout 2025 I missed weekend after weekend for one reason or another.

My one trip to date consisted of cleaning the portaloo after it was blown over in a storm, seconding Dave Madden up Contractions, VS 5a – which I found hard – and backing off leading Driodar na hAille, HS. According to UKC, I also seconded The Black Thief, VS 4b, and The Fence, VS 4c, but I have no memory of either.

My memory of Fair Head was of intimidating, hard, long routes. And I think each trip I missed in 2024 and 2025 made them a little longer, a little harder, a little more intimidating.

Fair Head is a different beast to Dalkey, even to Glendalough – Rob S sums it up better than I ever could in his two excellent posts. Go and read them if you haven’t, or read them again if you have.

The Trip That Almost Wasn’t

Rob organised this trip. He told (not asked) us we were going to Fair Head this weekend having booked it off work weeks in advance.

Jean was sceptical I’d actually make it. To be fair to him, I’d missed all the 2025 trips to Fair Head, and the week leading up to this one seemed no different. Work needed sorting. Family things needed sorting. Getting to Jean’s for a lift on Friday needed sorting. At one point during the week he texted me: just tell your wife it’s my birthday. He’d be 56.

Thursday afternoon, the day before we were due to drive north, a new group chat pinged. The first message was a poll from Jean: “I want to rent Sean’s house 300 pounds for 2 nights. Ill contact him if enough people want it.”

No one else was particularly pushed. Camping was a fiver a night with a portaloo, apparently, and most of us had come to climb, not to host a gîte weekend. Jean had been up a few weeks ago and ended up with a double bed all to himself in Sean’s house, and as one message aptly put it: “Jean is too posh to camp these days.”

The talk of the house also got Rob to admit, sheepishly, that he didn’t actually have any of his camping gear. It was in his parents’ house. In Kildare. With the lend of a tent, a sleeping mat, and a sleeping bag, we were ready to camp.

Post Intro2Trad pub talk that evening started drifting toward the trip.

“I’ve been to Fair Head twice and it’s rained both times,” I say. “I’ve never led anything up there.”

“The Black Thief,” someone suggests, and Amy looks at me.

Two years ago at the Dal Riada meet, Amy had got cold belaying Sorcha up The Black Thief, lost the feeling in her fingers, and panicked halfway up – jammed her arm into a crack to stop herself coming off. Her shoulder hasn’t been the same since. And she hasn’t been back to Fair Head either.

“The Fence,” says another.

But no, Rob is insistent – he has been for a while – “It’s Midnight Cruiser.”

“Oh, I’ll belay you on that,” says Sorcha.

“She’ll be leading it too,” says Rob, with his big smile that sits somewhere between charming and mischievous.

I went to bed half-stressed, half-excited about my first lead at Fair Head.

Into the Palace

Myself and Jean travelled up together on Friday night and rolled into Sean’s field with the tents pitched by 9pm, and the conspicuous absence of any portaloo.

While Jean missed out on getting Sean’s house, he did have a new tent, and this weekend was its first pitch. It’s massive. It has a separate seating area. You can stand up in it. And as we finished pitching it, he produced a roll of carpet for the floor.

The old man needs his comforts.

By the time Amy, Rob and Sorcha arrived an hour or so later, myself and Jean were settled in eating dinner and drinking a beer, and a working theory was quietly formed that the absence of a portaloo was actually Jean playing a long game to get us to rent Sean’s house next time.

My goal for the weekend was simple: lead something. Anything else was a bonus. We agreed to start the next day with the classic 100m, three-pitch An Bealach Rúnda, E1 5b. Jean wanted to lead the first pitch, which meant I was on the second.

The guidebook starts the second pitch with: “Move up and left airily to gain the top of the detached column and flake. Across the flake to the wall, then an awkward move up.”

The Leap

Saturday morning the sun was shining, the wind had dropped, and it was dry.

While we were having breakfast in Jean’s palace, Rob returned from a run. His borrowed gear clearly not up to his usual high standards, as he’d frozen all night. But he’d brought breakfast – well, two pots of instant oats and a bottle of Huel, which seemed to be the extent of his provisions for the weekend. He scrounged some hot water and got porridge and coffee into him.

Fueled up for the day ahead, and after a quick study of the guidebook (Rob borrowed one), we split up: Jean and I heading for An Bealach Rúnda, Amy, Rob and Sorcha heading for the Prow – Amy for The Black Thief – where Kev was going to join them. Amy and I caught each other’s eye on the way out the gate.

After a bit of checking over the edge and having a look from other angles, Jean was confident we had found the ab point. He was less confident it was for the route we actually wanted to do, but after a bit more peering over the edge and comparing photos in the guidebook, he was sure, and set up the rope.

A brief discussion was had about whether to bring a small bag down. The idea was dismissed – it was a glorious day, and the bag would only get in the way on the first pitch. We skulled a load of water, jammed our pockets with snacks, and we were off.

The abseil itself is worth a day out. A hundred metres down, about halfway you drop in between two columns.

Jean tied in, double checked his rack, and he was off.

The first pitch is long – 45m – and the route is in the shade. The wind picked up. As I watched Jean worm and squirm his way up, I was regretting that we hadn’t brought the bag and an extra layer.

He called safe. I was up.

That first pitch is possibly the coolest and most bizarre 3D climbing I have ever experienced. From squeezing between two columns, bridging everything – hands, arms, legs, back, arse, at one point the side of my head – I inched, actually inched, my way up.

The gear at the start of the pitch is the kind you look at, and then look at again, slightly less convinced the second time. Without a big purple cam bumped behind the pillar and some creativity, you’d be starting on not much at all. As a second, it’s worth a giggle and a photo. As a leader, it’s more take what you can get.

I reached the belay at the top of a pillar and fully appreciated what the guidebook meant by airy.

(Check out the photos on UKC)

I racked up. Rob had told me there was a “good” nut on the right above the belay. I searched for a while and settled on a marginal #5 peanut – not exactly the safety net I had imagined.

I set off into the unknown with a literal leap of faith across the void. The moves aren’t hard. The position is “exciting”. Exposure I can take – it’s hard pumpy moves where I think I might come off that scare me. There is fifty-odd metres of nothing between my legs as I straddle across onto a pillar that is entirely detached from the wall. Once across there is another balancy move which feels bold, and then you get a good sling and everything feels nice and safe again.

The move up the wall after crossing the flake felt committing. It took me a few false starts to get going, but once I was up I was off. This pitch was the polar opposite of the first – face climbing with small and medium cams and nuts almost on demand. Until you end up on a large ramp leading to the belay.

My last nut was a few metres down. The ramp was big, nice, gentle – and covered in dry, powdery lichen. There was no gear that I could see. The belay was a mere two metres away. I tiptoed up as close to the wall as I could get. One heart-in-mouth slip while testing a foot placement. And I was at a massive belay ledge, with gear on demand.

My first Fair Head lead.

The step across was fine. The delicate move up was OK. The crux was a bit tricky. The gentle ramp with the green powder was terrifying.

Jean wrapped up the third pitch, and we were back at the abseil point – and the sunshine – in a respectable four hours, claiming a magnificent twenty-five metres an hour.

The Prow in the Sun

Heading back along the top toward the Prow, we passed Amy topping out on the second pitch of Girona VS 5a in the sun, with Sorcha looking impossibly comfortable on the belay below.

“How was it?” I called over.

“Hard!” she said, with a big smile. “And a lot of fun.”

I wasn’t sure if she meant The Black Thief or Girona. It didn’t matter.

The ab point for the Prow was right beside where Kev was belaying. He’d planned a chill weekend of easy VS multipitches with Lynn, but she wasn’t feeling well, so he was sharing a rope with Rob instead. He’d topped out on Mongrel Fox and was bringing Rob up.

“Jesus, this is tough,” Rob called up.

“Yeah, and it’s not over yet!” Kev replied with a playful, sadistic chortle.

“What grade is that?” I ask.

“E1 5b.”

My heart drops. That’s the grade of Midnight Cruiser, the route I’m planning to lead tomorrow.

Mind you, I just led an E1 5b on An Bealach Rúnda. Maybe Mongrel Fox is a sandbag.

We abseiled into the Prow. An hour earlier I’d been shivering on a belay ledge. Now I was standing in the sun in a t-shirt. It could have been Spain.

Next on my list was Midnight Cruiser, E1 5b – but I was saving that for Sunday. So I seconded Jean up Fireball, also E1 5b, and it was hard. Lots of jamming, very sustained, and I nearly came off at one point. I only realised afterwards that this was an onsight. Go Jean! Sorcha came up on the second rope.

Meanwhile Rob had come within a single cam placement of onsighting GBH, E3 6a. His own description, in the post-mortem at camp: “I faffed at the crux looking for gear and started getting pumped. I jammed in a yellow totem only to realise I had robbed my handhold and got spat off.”

Fireball is the route next door to Midnight Cruiser, two lines from Mongrel Fox – and it had been hard. The worry was settling in.

The Old Man’s Birthday Dinner

A quick stop back at camp, a lie down in the palace, and we all went for fish and chips in Ballycastle – an early celebration of Jean’s 58th birthday.

A game of tea roulette ended the night, as Sorcha broke out a lucky-dip bag of teabags and Rob made a hot water bottle out of a borrowed bottle. I got an early night with the slightly unhelpful thought that Mongrel Fox, Fireball and Midnight Cruiser were all the same grade. Even Kev seemed to think Mongrel Fox was tough. Fireball had been hard. Add in the memory of a hard VS in 2023 and backing off the HS, and I was doubting myself before I had so much as touched the rope.

Hugging the Fridge

Sunday morning was overcast but dry. We packed up and walked back to the Prow and broke into two threes – myself, Amy and Sorcha for Midnight Cruiser; Rob, Kev and Jean toward GBH.

I knew a few things about Midnight Cruiser. Forty metres long. Not sustained the way Fireball is. Takes loads of gear. Has a definite crux near the top. Looks safe.

Two metres off the deck, with almost a double rack on my harness and weighing approximately a tonne, I was searching for a nut placement. There was a perfect crack for a bomber blue cam, but I only had one blue cam. After faffing about for a few minutes, I talked myself into using it (I had two golds and two reds, I’d be fine), I continued up, placing gear carefully, trying not to burn it before I needed it. There were a few hard moves. There were also good rests.

I got to the bit that was clearly going to be the crux. I had a decent ledge to stand on, big slopey hands either side of a pillar, no obvious next move. I placed a good cam. I placed a good nut. High left foot, reach – nope, back we come. Place another cam. Slightly lower foot, here we go – nope, back again. Place another nut. Getting pumped.

Either I go for it or I don’t.

Low left foot, bump the right. Left hand up, right hand up, hug the fridge. I knew if I stopped I was off, so I didn’t stop. Left foot up, right foot over, right hand over, left foot up – right foot – left hand – jug. Right foot back out, place a yellow totem, and I’m on big flat holds to the top with both golds and reds still on the harness.

Whoop.

As I was bringing Sorcha and Amy up, both of whom cruised up with significantly more elegant high and wide feet than I’d managed, Rob, Jean and Kev came over to ab back down after their warm up. They asked me how it had gone. “Grand,” I said. “Ran it out a bit there,” Kev said. And then they were gone, back down for Rob’s attempt on GBH.

Just as Amy topped out, Kev called up from below – Rob had forgotten his shoes.

For anyone not keeping tabs, Rob, the one who organised this trip, had borrowed for the weekend so far: a tent, a sleeping mat, a sleeping bag, a guidebook, a bottle and some hot water for a hot water bottle, and – I almost forgot – the ropes I’d lent him a month earlier. He’d also borrowed hot water, a cup and a spoon for his breakfast, and a power bank for his phone. Now, it seemed he might be looking to borrow a pair of rock shoes next. Mercifully, he had only left them at the top of the crag.

But he has a double rack of totems, and that makes up for a lot.

We had a bit of a rest and some food in the sun. Amy turned to Sorcha. “You should lead it.”

Sorcha demurred. Amy pressed. I piled on. She had the margin. She agreed. We abseiled back down.

I stole a quick look around the corner – Rob had already topped out GBH. Clean. I stayed to watch Jean get spit off at the crux and then came back to watch Sorcha.

Sorcha cruised to the crux. Stopped. Placed a piece. Then another. Then another. Then another. I think six in total – definitely more than I had. She got pumped, called take, and rested on the rope. Her left foot went out, came back, went out, came back, again, again. Amy shouted up that her gear was bomber and she had this.

Then she was ready.

She was flowing through the crux – and halfway through, she stopped. She’s in trouble, I thought. But no – she just casually placed another cam midway through the crux.

I’d run it out to the jug because I had to. She didn’t.

She topped out. Her first E1. And it was at Fair Head!

Amy followed her up. This was her first E1 route – and she’d nailed it. Twice. Clean, easy, both times.

Only the sharp end left.

Amy, Rob and Sorcha got on the road. Kev and Jean ticked one more route. I sat in the sun, contented.

Then we were done.

Three years ago I stood on a Fair Head HS and convinced myself it was beyond me. This weekend I led E1 5b on Fair Head. Twice. The climbing was fine. The weather gods smiled.

Not for the first time, I am realising I can build occasions up far bigger than they deserve.

If only I’d fallen, it could have been perfect.

Next time.

Happy 60th birthday, Jean.