Pádraig O’Hora has opened up on the ‘touch of dread’ he faced when reaching the summit of Mount Everest.
The Mayo GAA star was part of the first all-Irish group in over 20 years to reach the highest peak in the world.
O’Hora, Éanna McGowan and Adam Sweeney (who became the youngest Irish person to reach the summit) stood on top of the world in the early hours of Wednesday, May 20.
The climbers were scheduled to make the summit on Tuesday, but had to turn around due to dangerous conditions, deep snow, and freezing temperatures just 400 metres from the peak of Everest.
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Speaking on the Oliver Callan Show on RTÉ Radio 1 on Monday, Pádraig said he couldn’t explain how they tried a second time.
"You don’t get a second attempt at Everest," he told Oliver, "The fact that we went up, came back down, we were turned around and went again is insane.
"I don’t even know how to explain the level you need to get to to get your feet back out of the tent at 8,000 metres, it was just nuts."
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The team was away for almost two months, with Pádraig away from his partner and three kids for some 55 days, noting it was "a tough one."
He said: "We’re lucky enough while we’re at basecamp for most of the time we had some form of contact, so it was like an early morning conversation before school most days.
"The oldest buck is 13, so he fully understood it."
Scaling Everest was a childhood dream of Pádraig’s who noted that it went to the wayside before he eventually got to train for it.
The expedition was done in tandem with Pádraig raising money and awareness for Mayo Mental Health Association.
Despite realising his dream at around 3 am Nepali time on Wednesday, he admitted it wasn’t until a few hours off the summit before he enjoyed the milestone.
"Not anti-climactic but I was very, very conscious of the emotion," the father-of-three told Oliver.
"I didn’t really enjoy it, not until I got down… Maybe four or give hours back down off the summit was when it really hit home and the emotions started flooding through."
Pádraig clarified that while there was excitement reaching the summit, there was also a "touch of dread."
He explained: "That’s where the game starts, on the way down is the real danger.
"It’s on the way down that things go terrible wrong. Until your home, the jobs not done, so I was very conscious of that."
For more information and to donate to Pádraig’s fundraiser, go here.
*This article was originally published on Extra.ie.
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