Weekly Tales - Pilgrims of the Reek
Words by Cameron McFarlane of Weekly Tales. If you’re interested in supporting the kickstarter for ‘Pilgrims of the Reek’, click here!
Croagh Patrick has been a site of pilgrimage for over 1,500 years; on the last Sunday in July (30th July 2023 this year), up to 30,000 Catholic pilgrims climb the 764-metre-tall mountain, with many walking barefoot as an act of penance. Catholics climb ‘the Reek’ as it is believed that St. Patrick once summited the mountain, undertaking a 40-day fast on its peak before ‘throwing a bell down the mountainside’ to banish the snakes from Ireland, making the country habitable.
Existing documentary of Reek Sunday consists of historic archival films owned by British Pathé; Alan Titchmarsh once made a segment about the pilgrimage; a local documentarian called Oliver Whyte (who I am acquainted with) carries his camera during a wet pilgrimage in 2016, interviewing pilgrim friends as they summit the mountain. This film will be a unique visual study of the historic festival, whose conflict, upon which documentary thrives, is found in the individuals battling against the mountain and a dwindling Irish Catholicism.
Inspired by the films of Gianfranco Rosi, as well as Anna Zamecka, ‘Pilgrims of the Reek’ will explore the possibilities of poetic and observational filmmaking in its attempts to build a thorough portrait of people and place. Having conducted a research trip to Westport, Co. Mayo in March of this year, the film has benefitted from the lived experiences of Westport locals, for whom the Reek has been of significant interest. Thanks go to both Harry Hughes and Oliver Whyte for the time they have thus far given to the project.
This 20-minute film will be an immersion into a community; an observation of life in the shadow of a formidable mountain, atop which thousands have clambered as penance, seeking closeness to their God. Yet for younger people the 'most dangerous climb in Ireland' is less about religious meaning, instead, it is about national identity and personal challenge.
