Coomhola farmer Pat ‘The King' Harrington had a pleasant surprise when he met An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar on top of Carrantuohill in the Magillicuddy Reeks.
BY MARK BOYDEN
COOMHOLA farmer Pat ‘The King’ Harrington had a pleasant surprise when he met An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar on top of Carrantuohill in the Magillicuddy Reeks.
Pat set off to climb Carrantuohill, Ireland’s highest mountain, with Maryrose McCarthy, Jess Lynch, Ciara O’Driscoll Murphy, Brendan Douglas and his son Tom.
Little did they know that an Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, who had been leading Cabinet meetings in nearby Derrynane, would express an interest in climbing Carrantuohill during his Kerry sojourn, on the same day.
‘We were at the top, just eating our sandwiches, when we saw some people approaching,’ said Pat. ‘One of us, it might have been Ciara, said “That one looks just like the Taoiseach” and I think it was Jess who piped up: “It is the Taoiseach!”’
Pat said Leo and his two companions were happy to join in with them and eat their own sandwiches. ‘We all just enjoyed the view and chatted about the easy cares of a summer’s afternoon,’ he said.
Pat added that meeting the Taoiseach on the summit was definitely one of the ‘high’ points of his life.