Tag Archives: mourne mountains

The “Denis Rankin” spirit lives on!

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At midnight on Friday 5th October, “Newcastle AC” runners, Mark King, Stephen Wallace & Dominic McInerney, along with a team of assisting runners left Donard Car Park at the start of their attempt of “The Denis Rankin Round”.

The Denis Rankin Round (or “DRR”) is a circuit of all the major peaks in the Mourne Mountains over 400m in height, covering 90km and 6500m in ascent. The challenge is to complete this within a 24 hour period, however, in this instance, the trio were aiming for a completion time of 22 hours 42 minutes.

Mark King, Dominic McInerney & Stephen Wallace at the start of their “DRR”.

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Alex Kendall’s Round Report

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On the way to Northern Ireland for work, I was looking up possible long running routes for a day off I had two and a half weeks later. I only then came across the Denis Rankin round, and the story of Denis Rankin himself. I’m amazed it’s not more known about in England, but hopefully, it will be in time. I had been to the Mournes once before and had run up Slieve Donard in the mist, so didn’t really know the route at all. However, it looked inspired, and since the only real downside was the chance of failure, I planned to give it a go. Continue reading →

Rankin Round recap: Linda O’Connor

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Its 2:45 am and the Slieve Donard carpark is practically empty as Nigel, Denis, Robbie & I line up under the arch and set off on our merry way. It’s a beautiful night, the temperature is much warmer than expected and the visibility is excellent.  As we went up the Slieve Donard path, I was thinking to myself how long it had been since I had done a 24-hour event. The banter was good as we chit chatted and remarked how obsessed we had gotten with the weather over the past few weeks. This night was to be cold per the weather forecast but that wasn’t to be the case. Off came my jacket after 30 minutes and there it would stay until the last 2 hours or so. Indeed we were blessed with the weather. Continue reading →