(by Noel Brown, January 2012)
“Those of us who enjoyed his friendship and shared mountain experiences with him over the years are privileged indeed to have known this unique and generous man.”

Noel Masterson died suddenly in January 2011, just a few weeks after celebrating his 81st birthday. His passing further weakens the connection between those who were active in the early days of the club and the modern IMC.

Noel wasn’t a founder member, but came to the club on the crest of the second wave of new members in the early 1950’s, having served his apprenticeship in the Boy Scouts. His was an adventurous spirit, which saw the Irish Mountaineering Club as the gateway to the mountain world.

At this time, there were certain books which were essential reading (and perhaps still are) for anyone aspiring to climb in the Alps, but in those days it seemed that none was more important than Frank Smythe’s wonderfully inspirational “Mountaineering Holiday”. This was the famous mountaineer’s account of a few weeks spent climbing in the Alps during the summer of 1939, a few weeks that ended just days before the outbreak of World War II.

For Noel, Smythe’s book became a sort of blueprint for an alpine holiday and so, in the summer of 1953, he and a few other members of the club, having read and re-read Smythe, prepared themselves for a great alpine adventure, the training for which consisted of doing a couple of longer-than-usual walks in the Wicklow mountains and a handful of rock-climbs in Dalkey Quarry and Camaderry. Such was the extent of training for the Alps in those days.

Thus prepared, they set off in the hope of emulating some of the routes that were so excitingly described in Smythe’s book, and emulate them they did. Several fine climbs were done: Les Bans, Les Écrins, Les Dômes de Miage, Pic Coolidge and, to finish somewhat triumphantly, on a great climb – the ascent of Mont Blanc by the Bionassay Arête. Such a successful season, nearly sixty years ago, was surely a landmark in Irish mountaineering.

Earning a living has a habit of getting in the way of climbing plans and this was certainly the case with Noel. In spite of a great first season which promised so much, Criterion Press, the company that he had founded around that time (1952/1953), made enormous demands on him, and although he continued to walk and climb, his activities were, of necessity, carried out nearer home.

Some years later, Noel’s business acumen, combined with his energy and hard work, had, not surprisingly, borne fruit. His company had become extremely successful, allowing him the time to regain his former activity levels.

There were very few skiers amongst members in the early days of the IMC, but the late Jim Millar, a Scot, was one of the exceptions. When the unusually heavy snowfalls of the early nineteen-sixties occurred, Noel, under Jim’s tutelage, learned to ski and took to it with his customary zest. A few years later, in 1964, he was one of those who founded the Ski Club of Ireland and he continued to teach there for several years.

He was very active throughout the seventies, by which time he had become an expert skier. He skied in the Silvretta, and, with the Ski Club of Great Britain, did a ski tour of the Bernese Oberland which included an ascent of the Finsteraarhorn. The next year, along with his wife Ingrid, he skied the Chamonix – Saas-Fee High-Level Route, again with the Ski Club. He also skied in Scandinavia.

In 1976, back in the Alps, Noel did a fine lead of the Forbes Arête on the Aiguille du Chardonnet and in the following years had several winter ascents in the Scottish Highlands.

He loved challenges and when in 1977 I informed him that I was planning to do the extremely demanding Double Lugnaguilla Mountain Walk, he said, without the slightest hesitation, ‘count me in’. We did the walk in 27 hours and to this day, I still remember his wonderful cheery companionship during that gruelling marathon.

In 1981, shortly after running the first Dublin City Marathon, Noel discovered, almost by accident, that he had a cardiac condition. He was shocked, of course, but after a time came to look upon the discovery of the condition in a positive way; he saw it as something that might well have saved him from an even more serious problem at a later stage. He was advised to and did undergo a triple heart by-pass which was carried out by the late Dr Maurice Neligan.

He recovered remarkably quickly from what he regarded as a mere setback, and although his climbing was sporadic in the years following his “meeting with Dr. Neligan”, as he used to describe it, he remained active in many exciting ways and for the next few years was as likely to be found white-water rafting in Africa, which he visited a number of times, as climbing in the Alps or the Scottish Highlands, but in 1992 he was back where he most wanted to be – in the mountains, this time in the Grand Tetons of Wyoming with the very successful IMC Meet of that year.

The following year, 1993, a full forty years after his first great mountain adventure, Noel embarked on yet another – his objective this time being to ascend to the base camp of the Irish Mount Everest Expedition at an altitude of 17,000 feet. In a message from the camp via satellite phone to a Dublin radio station, he described with some emotion his joy at being so close to the greatest mountain of all, and he didn’t forget to request that a message of thanks be conveyed to Dr Neligan, without whose great skill he felt he never could have had this unforgettable experience.

Noel didn’t climb again after his Himalayan adventure, and although it wasn’t obvious at the time, his Everest trip clearly was a kind of pilgrimage – his farewell to the mountains. After it, he transferred his energies to cycling, an activity that was kinder to the system than climbing mountains. In nearly every year between 1994 and 2009 he set off with friends on cycling tours, mostly in France, but Germany and Austria and even Hungary were visited too. One bleak April, when Noel was in his mid seventies, he slipped away quietly, almost secretly, and cycled alone from Land’s End to John O’Groats, a distance of more than fourteen hundred kilometres, and a journey that took a full month to complete. Two years later, this time with friends, he cycled from Mizen Head at the southern tip of Ireland, to Malin Head in the North. Easy by comparison!

Noel had many interests; he was highly regarded by those in the craft of woodturning, at which he excelled and he did turn out some beautiful pieces of work. He had a lifelong interest in music, and when in later life he discovered that he possessed the skill required to hand-make musical instruments, he lost no time in getting started. With the care that was typical of him in everything that he did, he produced a viola and two fine violins which are still being played by one of his daughters. At the time of his death, he was making a cello which, of course, remains unfinished.

In spite of leading a busy life, Noel managed to find time to think of others who were less fortunate than himself. He devoted much time to charitable organisations such as the Society of St Vincent de Paul and was held in great esteem by The Samaritans, on whose behalf he regularly visited men who were imprisoned in Mountjoy Jail.

Noel was in love with life but his greatest love, apart from his wonderful family, was a simple one – love of the mountains in all of the moods that they could muster.

Those of us who enjoyed his friendship and shared mountain experiences with him over the years are privileged indeed to have known this unique and generous man. We miss him.

(by Paul Donnelly, from IMC Newsletter Summer 2011)
An obituary of the IMC’s co-founder and one of Ireland’s leading mountaineers.

I first encountered Joss when I joined the Irish Mountaineering Club in 1970 – in fact for some reason Joss was one of my proposers for full membership. In those days it quickly became obvious that Joss was a "primus inter pares" – he was so fully involved in club and wider mountaineering affairs. He was the organizer of the 1971 Greenland Expedition, which included Sé Nolan with whom I was friendly at the time. He was a founder of Irish Orienteers in which I was involved as a regular participant and of AFAS, which offered training courses in adventure sports including mountaineering. I recollect one bank holiday weekend course in Connemara in the early/mid 70s on which Joss and Paddy O Leary instructed and which involved three intensive days of orienteering, hill walking and climbing Carrot Ridge in the rain as well as Sunday morning mass in Ben Lettery hostel celebrated by Fr Aengus, a fellow participant.

In 1976 Donal Ó Murchú, Jim Butler, Bairbre Sheridan and I traveled by car to a club Alpine meet at La Bérarde led by Joss who was accompanied by Nora his wife, and Clodagh his young daughter. While our group had a pleasant time climbing Aiguille Dibona (Boell Route) as well as standard routes on Les Bans, Coolidge, etc., Joss was busy climbing harder routes with Ingrid Masterson – they did the traverses of the Meije and of the Barre des Écrins as well as some other fine routes. Joss later told me that 1976 was one of his most fulfilling seasons.

Later in 1982 I was delighted to be asked to travel overland in his car with Joss, Ingrid and Liam Convery on a climbing trip to the Val Bregaglia – a beautiful long valley in Italian Switzerland. Based in a wooded campsite at Vicosoprano, a quiet but charming traditional village, we followed a structured build-up of 4/5 climbs leading to a traverse of the Piz Badile by the North Ridge. This was a classic three-day mountaineering expedition starting with an overnight bivouac at the ridge foot, a full day’s traverse of the Badile from dawn to dusk, followed by a night on a floor mattress after a late and hard-won scratch meal at the Gianetti Hut, and then finishing next day with a long two-col return to Switzerland. On that trip I climbed with Ingrid while Liam partnered Joss. I recollect Ingrid and I reaching the summit of the Badile to find Joss and Liam dozing in the sun – due to my more basic climbing skill we were a good hour if not two behind them.

After our Bregaglia trip I would have been involved in various trips and events in which Joss also participated – IMC trips to the Lakes, orienteering meets, Long Walks etc., but I did not climb with him nor was I particularly close to him until after I retired from full-time work in 2002. Then I was for a few years a part-time Trails Inspector for the National Waymarked Ways Committee of the Irish Sports Council, of which Joss was then (and until very recently) Chairman. I got to walk occasionally with Joss and also drove him on some of his out-of-Dublin projects (he was still working as an Engineer) – for example in 2006 to Donegal to supervise restoration work for the Board of Works on the Grianán of Aileach fort. I recollect also driving him in 2008 at Garech de Brún’s invitation to Luggala House for a guided tour and a chat. Even though I had a long personal to-do list of my own home projects I was persuaded by Joss to do some DIY projects at their home for himself and Nora but always under his close instruction and supervision. Joss was Project Manager and I was the tradesman.

Joss kept physically and mentally active and engaged up to the end of his life. In recent years as mentioned above I became a walking partner as Joss’s physical ability declined and we would go out on short outings in Wicklow and latterly in Dublin. Marlay Park and Bushy Park Dodder trail were favourites. Joss always had a clear objective and would log his walk times faithfully. A late preoccupation of his was to get to the cross on Bray Head under his own steam. During last summer we tried and failed to get there up the direct trail from the west beside the golf course near Bray – the final steeping of the trail defeated us. But on a later attempt by the green road/trail from just north of Windgate near Greystones we got to the summit ridge (although I had to remove the top rung of the stile near the top) and spent a pleasant interlude just below the trig point looking north to the Cross and down to the Irish Sea and Greystones below and, of course, west to Glencree, Kippure and our beloved Wicklows. As far as I know this was Joss’s last high point and I was honoured to have been part of it.

As I have noted above our outings in recent years were physically modest affairs taken at a gentle pace and yet they were not dull and dutiful for me. Joss had a wide range of interests – nature, heritage, literature, music, politics and yes, of course, mountaineering and travel. On our walks he always had a sharp eye for flora and fauna, would take photos and at home check up on plants or birds we had encountered that he was unsure of. I didn’t realise it at the time but Joss over those last years was a role model for how to adapt to the inevitability of aging and that one must keep engaged with the present and indeed the future, must keep physically and mentally active and maintain the element of challenge and momentum in one’s life.

Thanks Joss for all you have given me – the IMC, orienteering, great days on the hills, companionship, and your stimulating personality and presence … Farewell.