A salute to the man who made Ireland's first long-distance walking trail

Mon, 16 Oct, 2023 - 17:55

John G O’Dwyer

Recently, a friend presented me with a well-thumbed copy of a book printed in 1964. Titled Walking in Wicklow, it represents one of Ireland’s earliest walking guides. Published by Helicon, Dublin and written by one JB Malone, it is by today’s standards a simple guidebook. There are no photographs, the maps are minimalist and there are no route summaries. There is, however, an index and a series of illustrations by 19th-century cartographer and artist George du Noyer.

The book’s author, John James Bernard Malone, was born in Leeds to Irish parents in 1913. At this time, hillwalking had become a popular pastime for the recently emerged class of urban industrial workers in the English Midlands. It was seen as important enough to spark a mass trespass of disenchanted walkers on Kinder Scout in the Peak District when the Duke of Devonshire denied recreational access to this mountain.

Raised in England, JB, as he was known to all, moved to economically depressed Ireland in 1932 at a time when most migration was in the opposite direction. Initially, he began living with relatives in Rathgar which was then on the southern edge of Dublin city. With no particular job-related skills, he worked for a builder’s providers firm and later with an insurance company.

His real passion was, however, exploring the mountains that lay immediately to the south of his home. The English hillwalking revolution had yet to reach impoverished Ireland, where people were still too concerned with their daily struggles to consider the benefits of upland recreation. The result was, that in his early years, JB mostly ploughed a lonely furrow.

He seemed destined for an unremarkable life until, in 1939, he was invited to write a regular walking-based column for the Evening Herald newspaper. Innovative for its time, the column became popular and made him known to a wide audience.

Joining the Irish Army at the outbreak of World War II, he trained as a cartographer — a very valuable skill for a hillwalker and aspiring guidebook author. Discharged from the army in 1946, he began work as a draughtsman before joining the Department of Posts and Telegraphs in 1948. In the interim, he married Margaret Garry, with whom he had three children.

Now living in more secure circumstances, he published his first book titled The Open Road in 1950, while continuing to write for the Evening Herald throughout the 1950s. In the early 1960s, JB was invited to present a television series on RTÉ entitled Mountain and Meadow in which he introduced viewers to a variety of hill walks in Dublin, Wicklow, and nearby counties. Building on this notoriety, he went on to publish the guidebook Walking in Wicklow and pen another popular series in the Evening Herald titled, Know Your Dublin.

Now a well-known and respected figure, he was elected to the board of An Taisce (the national trust) in 1968 and in this role became active in opposing the destruction of Georgian Dublin by developers. His most abiding contribution to Irish life was, however, the development of the Wicklow Way linking Marlay Park, County Dublin with Clonegal, County Carlow.

Tinahely town views from the Wicklow Way

Having toyed with the idea of a waymarked walking route through Wicklow for two decades, he was presented with the opportunity to progress the idea, when he was nominated to the newly established Long Distance Walking Routes Committee in 1978. On his retirement from the public service, he was then the natural choice for the role of full-time field officer with the Committee. Here, he undertook the painstaking task of negotiating rights-of-way with landowners to enable his vision for a linear trail through the heart of Wicklow to become a reality. In 1982 his efforts came to fruition when the 130-kilometre Wicklow Way was officially opened as Ireland’s first long-distance walking trail.

JB passed away in 1989 having lived long enough to see his greatest dream come to fruition. He did not, however, survive to see his other great dream realised. The Wicklow Mountains National Park was officially opened in 1991, but there is little doubt that JB was highly influential in the decision by Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, to create it.

With his Irish legacy often compared to that of legendary Lakeland fell walker and guidebook author, AW Wainwright, JB’s memory is kept alive today at a place he loved. On the mountainside high above Lough Tay on the Wicklow Way, a simple monument beneath a large boulder reads, “To the Memory of JB Malone Pioneer of the Wicklow Way”.

His greatest legacy is intangible, however. It is the health and happiness that comes to multitudes of walkers who each year enjoy completing some part of, what is to this day, Ireland’s busiest long-distance trail.