![\"Descent](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/BYLJYFU6FREPFPKRDARF6KVF6E.jpg\")
Descent from Everest <\/p>\nIf you think climbing Everest is stressful, try doing it with the deadline of your daughter\u2019s communion rattling around in the back of your head. When The Irish Times caught up with P\u00e1draig O\u2019Hora on Friday, he was in the process of hauling ass back to Ireland, hoping to get to Mayo in time for eight-year-old Mila-Rae\u2019s big day on Saturday. He could make sense of it all in good time. Now he just wanted to get home.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m still all over the shop,\u201d he said. \u201cWe haven\u2019t stopped to even take stock yet but in general, I\u2019m over the moon to have achieved what I set out to do. I haven\u2019t spoken to home properly yet. What do you even say? I\u2019m rushing home for the communion but I\u2019m afraid to say I\u2019ll be there, considering how all the rest of the expedition has gone with delays and setbacks.\u201d<\/p>\n
None of it has really sunk in yet. At around 1.30am on Wednesday morning, he was sitting on the top of the planet, with all the good and all the bad of the whole world below him. It will take a while to process the scale of it all and decompress. \u201cI\u2019m very conscious of the transition back to real life.\u201d<\/p>\n
He, his Irish team-mates Adam Sweeney and \u00c9anna McGowan and their three-man sherpa team didn\u2019t linger up there. But they were able to take a photo and sit at rest for a moment. \u201cWe were all over the place with tiredness at that stage. I would say we were there for less than 15 minutes altogether in the dark.\u201d<\/p>\n
All in all, they\u2019ve been away for just short of eight weeks. From the very start, it was an expedition full of diversions and setbacks. They flew through Abu Dhabi on the way over to Nepal, just as the Iran war was kicking off \u2013 there were two missile warnings during their stopover in the airport there.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve been through altitude sickness, whiteouts, avalanches. An icefall that froze over and couldn\u2019t be passed for days, an aborted summit push that caused them to turn back just 400m from the top of the mountain and a wild final day when they finally got there through hostile weather and massive climbing traffic. Yet, as O\u2019Hora puts it, the one thing they planned for above all was for the unplanned to keep happening. And it did.<\/p>\n
Descent from Everest <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was nearly exactly how I expected it,\u201d he says. \u201cWe got very unfortunate at times and challenged with delays that were unexpected. A lot of uncertainty. But in general, it was how we thought it would be.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were times of huge pressure and stress. I was very aware of some moments where if I made a mistake it was all over. I had one panic mode around oxygen and not getting enough but I stuck strongly to the training I\u2019d done, both physical and psychological, before leaving.\u201d<\/p>\n
The mountain has left a few marks on him. He has, he says, \u201clost an outrageous amount of weight\u201d. But other than some superficial snow burn on his face and the general pain that comes with such a huge physical output, he\u2019s mostly in good shape.<\/p>\n
That goes for the mind, as well as the body. O\u2019Hora\u2019s big aim throughout was to raise awareness for mental health services in his home county of Mayo. Spending 48 days on the mountain gives you plenty of thinking time and endless space to be alone with in your own head.<\/p>\n
Asked what he knows know that he didn\u2019t know before he went up there, he doesn\u2019t spare himself. \u201cThat I have a fair amount of personal work that I need to do coming home. That Everest feels like a natural catalyst to moving forward. That Everest is an inside job.\u201d<\/p>\n