Betsy Rubiner Looks at the Hows and Whys of Journaling

From lit.newcity.com

By Mary Wisniewski

The Chicago reporter, who's written eighty-two volumes of diaries over almost sixty years, is out with a book on her lifelong practice 

Chicago reporter Betsy Rubiner’s oldest surviving diary is from 1967, when she was eight years old. It was one of those Page-A-Day books, with a beige, faux-leather cover and a now-busted lock.

Revisiting that diary many years later, Rubiner found a page labelled “IDENTIFICATION,” with fill-in-the-blank lines for name, address, phone and so on. One blank was for weight. There was a scribble on the line, followed by “59” written in pencil. Looking closer at the scribble, Rubiner found that she had originally written “60” and crossed it out. “I smile, recognizing my lifetime habit of fudging my weight,” Rubiner writes in “Our Diaries, Ourselves.” “This is me.”

Since that first little book, Rubiner has written eighty-two volumes of diaries over almost sixty years. They’re packed into a grey fireproof filing cabinet. Knowing she wouldn’t live forever and not wanting to destroy the journals, Rubiner looked into how she could donate them. The existence of women’s archives that preserve diaries piqued her interest—she hadn’t known there was a world of such donations. Then her son asked her a crucial question—“Why have you written a diary for so long?”

A longtime journalist, Rubiner opened the investigative floodgates on diaries. What counts as a diary? Who keeps diaries? Why do they keep them?

And how do they contribute to our study of history? On her search, Rubiner read old diaries—from famous ones like those of Anne Frank and Samuel Pepys to lesser-known accounts by nineteenth-century farm wives. She interviewed diary scholars, talked to diarists, visited archives in Europe and the United States, and even learned about a “diary festival” in an Italian village that also boasts a diary museum. Mixed in with the scholarship is Rubiner’s own diary journey, including snippets about John Lennon’s murder and the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack.

The result is Rubiner’s quirky, fascinating and deeply reported book, “Our Diaries, Ourselves: How Diarists Chronicle Their Lives and Document Our World.” Rubiner says her research made her feel less like an oddball for keeping a journal so long and faithfully—there are diary lovers everywhere. And their numbers may be growing, with some young people turning toward analogue activities, like writing with pen and paper. Stationary stores are seeing lines of shoppers.

                                                                            Betsy Rubiner/Photo: Jessica Tampas

I am also a long-time diarist—writing almost daily since I was twelve. For ten years, I’ve taught a class on diary writing at the Newberry Library. So after reading Rubiner’s book, I interviewed her at a Women and Children First bookstore event to learn more about her adventures in what she calls “Diary-land.”

“One of the things that I really found fascinating is how people go to such great lengths to write diaries,” Rubiner says. For example, in the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University, there’s a diary written on toilet paper by a resident of a battered-women’s shelter.

“It was sent in by this woman who said ‘I didn’t have any other paper supplies, so I wrote on toilet paper,’” Rubiner says. It was carefully preserved in an elegant box packed with foam and archival paper. “She was desperate to write, apparently. I saw that time and again, even just with people who had these incredibly long days… They plucked seven chickens, washed three loads of laundry in scalding water, this litany of chores. And then they still found time at the end of the day or whatever part of their day to write a diary and to record this. To me, that was astonishing.”

While both women and men have kept diaries over the centuries, Rubiner notes that diaries kept by women had been less valued in the past because they often dealt with domestic matters, like baking bread and nursing children, instead of war and politics. But women’s diaries often show how private life was lived in the past.

An example is the diary written by Martha Ballard, a midwife in Hallowell, Maine from 1785 to 1812. “A Midwife’s Tale,” a book by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich based on Ballard’s diary, won the Pulitzer Prize for history in 1991. Ballard “was literally in everybody’s business,” Rubiner says. “She was delivering babies in the 1700s and knew all kinds of stuff about life in that period for women and obstetrics.” Rubiner talked to Ulrich, a history professor who had been trying to piece together the lives of women. “She said other people dismissed the stuff in here as trivia.”

Another famous woman’s diary is that of Anne Lister, a nineteenth-century English woman who chronicled her lesbian affairs. Also known as “Gentleman Jack,” Lister’s life was made into a BBC miniseries.

Rubiner talked to American diary scholar Rebecca Hogan about why women have kept diaries through the centuries. “Many women have found, in diaries, a tangible form for saving their lives,” Hogan told her. British writer Sarah Gristwood, who reviewed 400 years of women’s diaries for the 2024 anthology “Secret Voices: A Year of Women’s Diaries,” said that the strongest emotion expressed was “anger—frustration.” A diary from Sarah Welch Hill, living in nineteenth-century Canada, tells of her husband’s abuse. “He became outrageous threw the clothes off me & became extremely violent…”

Rubiner also explores whether diaries are therapeutic and can help with creativity. Rubiner quotes novelist Madeleine L’Engle, who started a journal at age eight and advised young writers “to keep an honest, unpublishable journal that nobody reads, nobody but you.” Rubiner also quotes Joyce Carol Oates, who called journal writing “immensely helpful” to develop the essentials for a writer. Rubiner sums these up as “the ability to observe closely, to think deeply for sustained periods of time, to describe the world in language.”

“Our Diaries, Ourselves” also looks at the touchy subject of whether diarists should destroy their work, or reread it. Some people burn their diaries because they’re too embarrassing, or they don’t want to cause hurt after they die to family members because of what they wrote.

Rubiner quotes Joan Didion, who argued in favour of reading about our old selves: “I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise, they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4am on a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget too soon the things we thought we could never forget.”

For diarists who choose to preserve their work, Rubiner has found a surprising number of repositories. A long-time resident of Iowa and former reporter for the Des Moines Register, Rubiner has chosen to donate the contents of her grey filing cabinet to the Iowa Women’s Archives. She reports that Europe has at least ten archives focused on collecting the unpublished work of ordinary people.

While the United States doesn’t have the same well-developed archive tradition, Rubiner reports of two separate efforts to create an American diary archive, both started in 2022. The American Diary Project collects the diaries of “ordinary, everyday Americans” and thus far has 300 handwritten volumes. It relies on trained volunteers to transcribe them.

Another project was started by five diary collectors, including Chicago-area author Robert K. Elder. The archive intends to collect both diaries and letters written by people from all walks of life.

Rubiner tells me that her diary habit has helped shape her personality. “I’m probably a little bit more overanalytical at times,” Rubiner says. “I think I get myself a little bit more than I might have otherwise, if I didn’t write a diary as long as I have. I don’t know who I would be, if I didn’t have a diary, or didn’t have this diary-writing thing that goes on every single night.”

Ruiner admits that occasionally she has overdone her diary habit, and that despite all its benefits, sometimes writers may ruminate too much in diaries and accent the negatives in their lives. “Like anything that I think generally is a good thing, it can be a bad thing if you overdo it, or don’t necessarily do it in the right way.”

Rubiner writes that one problem with her decision to donate her diaries is that she now thinks of future readership, and sometimes senses other readers looking over her shoulder. She writes, “I have vowed to guard against creeping self-censorship. If I can’t be myself, on any given day, I’ve lost my most powerful reason to keep a diary.”

                                                                                                   Jacket design: Louis Roe

“Our Diaries, Ourselves: How Diarists Chronicle Their Lives and Document Our World”
By Betsy Rubiner
Beacon Press, 272 pages

https://lit.newcity.com/2026/05/20/betsy-rubiner-looks-at-the-hows-and-whys-of-journaling/

Here are 20 things I have learned in 20 years of writing An Irish Diary

From irishtimes.com

By Frank McNally

Deadline fears, the law of typos and becoming a master diarist are just some

It’s 20 years since I started writing this column. And no, I don’t know where the time went. But here are 20 things I’ve learned along the way.

1. Working to a daily deadline is hard on the nerves. But the sad truth is, if I didn’t have a deadline, I’d never do anything.

2. That’s because the best idea I have today is never good enough. The one I’ll have tomorrow, where there’s more time to think, is always better.

3. Contrary to the impression I may have given over two decades, there is not an Irish angle to everything. You’d be appalled how many great events have happened down the centuries, the protagonists of which did not have a single Irish great-grandparent between them.

4. Unlimited choice is a tyrant. As anchor tenant of this column, you can write about anything: it’s left entirely up to you. This is a great privilege. And a curse. Sometimes you wish the editor would tell you what to write about. Then you could blame him.

5. They say it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become a master of any discipline. By rough calculation, this should have made me a master diarist sometime around 2019. I can’t say I noticed.

                                                Frank McNally at work, by the Cuban artist Brady Izquierdo

6. The condition of not having any ideas as deadline looms is like hunger: they both gnaw at your stomach in the same way. Comfort eating is an occupational hazard. Unless you take up cigarettes.

7. Not taking up cigarettes in the last 20 years is one of my prouder achievements.

8. Deadline fear never goes away. One night last week, I noticed with a panic that it was 7.30pm and I hadn’t started writing yet. This was impossibly late, barring a miracle. But I couldn’t find my editor to warn him the column wasn’t coming. So the panic deepened until I couldn’t breathe. Then I woke up. It was 3am and I’d been having that stupid dream again.

9. When you write something wrong in a newspaper, there’s often a little voice in your head trying to tell you it’s wrong. You just can’t hear it because of all the other background noise. The little voice will only make itself audible when the noise stops. This typically happens at 3am too, when your mistake has gone to print.

10. Being a columnist is incompatible with a tidy desk. I can carbon-date the layers of paper cuttings on mine, but I’m afraid to throw any out because I must have had a good reason for keeping them in the first place, even if I can’t remember. And every so often, an idea does emerge from the mulch.

11. Daily diarists have no choice but to dramatise their lives. On the plus side, this means that when something genuinely bad happens, assuming it’s not fatal, you often have the consolation of getting a column out of it.

12. There are limits to that – or should be. Jeffery Bernard wrote a long-running column called Low Life, for which his alcoholism was a professional requirement. “The longest suicide note in history” as it has been called, was probably too high a price to pay for material. Although it did inspire a hit West End play. I envy him that.

13. When you’ve written 3,500 columns, you will repeat yourself occasionally. I like to compare this with Monet’s haystacks, painted over and over in different conditions. The excuse works doubly well for me because I have written about actual haymaking on several occasions. But the light had changed each time.

14. Muphry’s (sic) Law of Typos is immutably true. If you comment in print on an interesting or amusing mistake committed by another writer, your piece will inevitably contain an interesting or amusing mistake of its own.

15. Someone once said of the housewife-columnist Erma Bombeck that, whereas others aspired to mere Pulitzer Prizes, her work won “the permanent place of honour in American life: the refrigerator door.” I’m proud to say the occasional Irish Diary has featured on fridge doors too.

16. A few have also been framed on pub walls: the Irish columnist hall of fame.

17. On any subject about which you expound in a newspaper, there is somebody somewhere who knows more than you.

18. But being corrected only adds to your education. Writing this diary four times a week for 20 years has been like doing a PhD in Irish Studies. In American universities, that would have cost me a fortune.

[ ‘O, the drenching grey weather’: Irish rain in 40 wonderful phrasesOpens in new window ]

19. Georges Simenon once claimed that “a writer has nothing to say after the age of forty”. Mickey Spillane disagreed: “If you’re singer, you lose your voice. A baseball player loses his arm. A writer gets more knowledge, and if he’s good, the older he gets, the better he writes.” I’m not sure which is correct but to paraphrase George Orwell on men’s faces at 50, I believe that after 20 years on the job, every daily diarist has the column he deserves.

20. All things considered, it beats working.

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/an-irish-diary/2026/05/19/it-beats-working-frank-mcnally-on-20-years-of-writing-a-column/ 

Diary Publishing Boom Reflects Desire to Find Connection with Strangers, Read Honest Thoughts

From japannews.yomiuri.co.jp

By Yuki Kobayashi

Reading and collecting ordinary people’s diaries is rising in popularity. Writers selling their own diaries is a booming business. An increasing number of books and magazines about the appeal of reading diaries are also being published and there is even a plan to establish a physical museum dedicated to collecting diaries.

Publishing own diaries

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Nikkiya Tsukihi in Setagaya Ward, Tokyo, displays the diaries of ordinary people published in book form as well as published diaries by celebrities

Diaries are familiar to Japanese people, as keeping one is a typical summer vacation homework assignment.

“There is a phenomenon that could be called a ‘diary book’ publishing boom, in which people publish their own diaries in book form,” said Reina Hisaki, director of Nikkiya Tsukihi, a store specializing in diaries that was established in Tokyo’s Shimokitazawa district in 2020.

Hisaki says that the number of applications to participate in the store’s biannual diary book sales events and to sell diaries at the store have both surged to several times the numbers seen when the store was established.

This trend is partly driven by the increased ease of book production, facilitated by the widespread use of personal computers and improved services from printing businesses. There is also a growing tendency for people who want to express themselves through writing to choose the diary form, as it is a familiar format.

Recently, diaries published in book form that are compiled from messages on dating apps or book reviews have become popular reads.

When asked about the appeal of reading diaries, Hisaki said, “Even when you read a stranger’s diary, you can find some connection with that person and gain the sense that their life somehow exists in parallel with your own life.”

With today’s online culture, which tends to focus on winning debates, reading people’s differing views in diary form discourages outright rejection of those ideas but rather makes us recognize the simple truth that “there are many different kinds of people,” Hisaki said.

Diaries may have the power to help us re-examine our relationships with others and with society as well, he added.

In December, Hisaki launched the quarterly magazine “Kikan Nikki” (Quarterly diary) as editor-in-chief, intending to spread the appeal of diaries further. The magazine features diaries by cultural figures and essays on the charm of keeping a diary. It has sold well and is already in its third printing.

Library of datebooks

The Yomiuri Shimbun

                                            Masafumi Shirado talks about the appeal of reading diaries and the like

Freelance programmer Masafumi Shirado published a book titled “Tanin no Techo wa ‘Mitsu’ no Aji” (The secret pleasure of peeking at others’ datebooks) in shinsho format by Shogakukan Inc. in October.

Since 2014, Shirado has collected handwritten diaries and the like, such as datebooks and appointment books, each filled with their owners’ freely expressed thoughts and ideas. He wrote the book as a result of his serious exploration of why reading ordinary people’s diaries is so interesting.

While the book title implies “peeking,” Shirado states that the appeal of reading diaries goes much further. Diaries and the like, intended to remain private, record how personal time and space were used and how the writers felt. The readers may also find that “intimate details” such as the writer’s writing habits, styles and changes in handwritten letters are naturally exposed.

“As you enjoy looking at them, you’ll probably discover how interesting humans are and realize that you must respect individuals,” he said.

To let people “hold in their hand and appreciate” such diaries, Shirado established the “Techorui Toshoshitsu” (Library of diaries and the like) initially in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo, in 2017. It relocated to Minato Ward, Tokyo, in February.

As the library’s collection has grown to over 2,000 volumes and he has some collaborators, he established a branch in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture, in July.

In recent years, as many people feel it is harder to express their true feelings online where aggressive feedback often follows, keeping a diary has become meaningful again, Shirado says.

Easing social media fatigue

The Yomiuri Shimbun

                                   The “Diary Museum” makes portions of its collection available on its website

Yusuke Kaneko, a company employee, launched a website called the “Diary Museum” in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kaneko became fascinated with diaries in high school, after reading his grandfather’s wartime diary following his death.

Realizing that his grandfather had narrowly survived the war, Kaneko had the strong feeling that “it is not true that only the lives of the people featured in textbooks are interesting. The records of everyone’s lives are worth preserving.” He then conceived the idea of collecting diaries.

Kaneko plans to establish a physical museum by 2032, and is preparing by actively purchasing diaries from ordinary people.

He has so far collected about 200 diaries from 60 people, some of which he has already released online.

“Diaries don’t make money. When the writers die, their diaries are usually discarded,” Kaneko said. “I didn’t want collecting diaries to end as just a hobby. I created the online museum to build a system for preserving as many diaries as possible. I want it to continue even after I’m gone.”

Kaneko lists the appeal of diaries, including the power of handwriting, giving a glimpse into the prices and social climate of the era in which they were written, and putting the readers’ worries into perspective.

“On social media it feels like people only show carefully crafted highlights of special days, and the writing is somewhat affected. Diaries are the complete opposite. That’s probably why tired people find reading diaries a fresh, enjoyable experience, and why they find it soothing.”

Liberation from norms

According to Associate Prof. Yusuke Tanaka, a diary culture specialist at Meiji Gakuin University, “diary booms” have occurred multiple times since the end of World War II. Around 1980, “kokan nikki” (exchange diary), or taking turns to write in a shared diary, was popular among young people. In the 2000s, the blogging style boomed.

Tanaka says that reading ordinary people’s diaries is a key feature of the recent boom.

He praises Shirado’s “Techorui Toshoshitsu” library, saying: “It makes people realize a little-known fact that things written by people are very interesting, even fragmentary records written by ordinary people. It is a sharp point of view.”

Tanaka also says that in the current situation, diaries by ordinary people are being published one after another, which is a significantly different trend from the past.

Previously, it was primarily great politicians, famous authors and other celebrities whose diaries were published. Aside from their narratives being considered major historical testimonies, the contents of these diaries satisfied people’s desire to glimpse the writers’ unique experiences or attributes, for example.

In contrast, in recent years, the contents of some published diaries have diverged significantly from the traditional style of candidly writing facts to include elements of creativity.

“Their writers create and accept their own stories without trying to attract business-oriented publishing companies, and share them with others by influencing each other. People are becoming liberated from the authority and norms related to writing,” Tanaka said, analysing this recent phenomenon.

https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/society/general-news/20260517-327919/

The Case for Journaling

From edexlive.com

By Angela Mary Thomas

In the 1940s, a young girl in hiding during the Nazi persecution started recording her daily life in a diary. Years later after her untimely death, The Diary of Anne Frank was published, reaching millions across the world. It is now one of the most referenced personal accounts of that period.

Keeping a diary was once a common habit, a private space to confess fears, record experiences, and let thoughts breathe without judgment. But in today's digital-first world, shaped by autocorrect and optimised algorithms, journaling has become something of an anachronism. Everyday communication now favours summarisation over depth, leaving little room for reflection. Journaling is increasingly misunderstood and prematurely dismissed, often framed as a reactive tool, people turn to when things begin to feel overwhelming.

As a result, a simple and useful practice has, in recent times, gained undue notoriety.

Clinical psychologists, however, are pushing back on this image. Speaking to Edexlive, Dr Aaradhana Reddy of Safespace Counselling describes it as "one of the most highly recommended exercises to support emotional regulation. In addition to being a medium to unload frustrations and anxiety, it is an effective tool to record our goals and gratitudes, bringing in self-awareness and thought clarity. In everyday life, conversations are becoming increasingly limited, and superficial, leaving our personal, surface-level feelings internal and without an outlet. Journaling provides a space to process them.”

Research also backs this up. Studies by psychologist James Pennebaker in the 1980s found that expressive writing reduces anxiety, improves immune function, and helps individuals process difficult experiences. Participants showed up to a 30% increase in cognitive clarity, reporting better focus and performance in the tasks that followed, leading to Pennebaker calling journaling "an important non-pharmacological tool for mental well-being."

“Journaling is your mental gym,” observes Dr Reddy. “We ourselves are the first line of helpers, healers and shielders of our mental state. Processing our thoughts and feelings helps build mental stability and resilience, much like a physical gym does for visible concerns.”

Highlighting how physical journaling remains relevant in the age of online journaling and AI, Dr Shripuja Siddamsetty, founder of Calm Mind Wellness and Barefoot Learning Experience, said “While digital journals exist, the tactile "hand-to-paper" connection involves a more complex motor-sensory loop. This physical engagement slows the brain down, facilitating deeper emotional processing.” Her patients who journal, she notes, reach breakthroughs significantly faster. She adds, "A journal doesn't hallucinate or provide polite answers like AI. It acts as a mirror."

There are also distinct differences between talking to a therapist or a friend and jotting down your thoughts.  When thoughts are written down, they can be revisited to understand what was felt, what triggered those emotions, and how one responded. Over time, this builds clarity, allowing individuals to recognise patterns, understand their thoughts and behaviours, and develop strategies. Unlike conversation, where relief often ends in the moment, journaling allows for continued reflection.

                                                                                                                      Oviya's journal

To understand the first-hand effects of journaling, we spoke to Oviya Omprakash about why she journals and how it has helped her. “I have always been an artist, and journaling allows me to combine art and words to express emotions more clearly,” she said.  Certain observations and experiences, she explains, compel her to give them tangible form, often as entries that find their place in her journal.

In an age that prizes speed and polished take, journaling is slow, private, and entirely without an audience. It asks only honesty and time, creating space to sit with, and understand one’s thoughts.

https://www.edexlive.com/news/the-case-for-journaling 

Pádraig O’Hora’s Everest Diary: ‘We wonder whether the icefall will ever become passable’

From irishtimes.com

With our route unexpectedly blocked and our team leader struggling with an ankle injury, the team faces new challenges to mind and body

Monday, April 20th

The return walk to Everest Base Camp (ECB) after summiting Lobuche East was a dreary one. It’s funny how the mind works – on the original walk in, we were all blown away by the views of these enormous mountains that make up the Khumbu headwall.

Now, on the way back, the views have not changed but our mindset has. It’s a quick reminder that you can be surrounded by people yet be lonely, surrounded by beauty yet sad. What is happening between the ears is what matters most, not what is going on around us.

We completed the taxing walk back into our camp at the feet of Everest and Lhotse. Staring directly into the icefall again, we – along with the rest of base camp and, at this stage, the whole climbing community across the world – were wondering whether this will become passable at all this season.

We have seen images of the crevasse and the serac that pose the main risk. It is our understanding that until it falls, the risk to life is too high to allow sherpa teams or commercial teams after them to pass. Patience will be the most tested characteristic for this entire expedition.

Pádraig O’Hora has been continuing his preparations for his ascent while waiting to find out whether the Everest icefall will become passable

Tuesday, April 21st

A rest day, something we will have to get used to in the coming weeks as we wait for news. We brought the team together and had a very open and honest conversation about how we feel, what this expedition could look like and possible actions we can take. Everyone had a positive input, as we talked about rest days effectively. Different activities and types of training using everyone’s skill set.

Jason Black, our team leader, has been struggling with a relatively serious ankle injury. He spoke openly about it today and the potential of it preventing him stepping higher on to the mountain with us when the time comes. He was limited by it on Lobuche and I feel we all appreciated his honesty around this. He cannot put us as a team or our success at risk because of his own ego. The need for an emergency rescue up high could cause the whole thing to fall apart.

The decision is yet to be made but from a personal standpoint I hope he can continue. I’ve always pictured the summit with two of us on it. However, I’m already starting to see it without him in person and thinking about what kind of energy that will give me to make it. Not only for myself but for him also.

Our sherpa team was confirmed today and each member was assigned a specific man for the task. All three are very strong, with numerous Everest and other 8,000-metre summits to their name.

Like always, conversations with home are keeping a man’s will strong. Mila-Rae is flying, busy with every activity under the sun, Sadie-Rose was so giddy today and smiling from ear to ear. Caiden is full of craic and it’s great to hear things are going well for him.

Wednesday, April 22nd

Today we are back out on the glacier working on the mountaineering skills that are so vital up here. Ladder crossings, jumar and belaying, over and over again. It was my first day working alongside our sherpa team and it’s important to me that they see how serious we are and how we apply ourselves.

So my focus was laser-like. I want them to know that come the 11th hour, no matter how tough it gets up there I can go to the well and they must allow me to do so. It starts today.

                                     Pádraig O'Hora wants the sherpas to know he can go to the well when required

Jason asked me to strap the ankle this morning and that’s where the years of GAA experience in strapping ankles came in handy. He seemed very happy with it after a while and I saw the smile on his face that comes with confidence in himself. The lads performed really well on the training and the whole team is looking good.

Thursday, April 23rd

The energy around camp is decreasing day by day. The Chinese whispers around the icefall are something I have removed myself from and will not participate in. It’s the same with the online content – anything that mentions Everest or the icefall, I swipe past at record speed. It serves no positive purpose to engage with it. I will not allow the water in the boat. It’s hard enough to paddle as things are.

I snuck in a little day nap today considering not much else is going on and woke to a call from Niamh. She filled me in on all the comings and goings of life back at home. It’s great to hear all the craic and how everyone is getting on.

After that we started into our planned rope session in the tent where one of our sherpas, Milan, helped us work through different knots, belay set-ups, harnesses, etc. We also had a group session with Karen Weekes, the psychologist, something I feel we all needed.

                                Pádraig O'Hora spent time doing rope work in preparation for his ascent of Mount Everest

Jason has suggested we go back down to Pangboche for a bit. He put it out there that we go down as a group to stop the attritional rot that happens at 5,400m above sea level, both on our body and our minds. We all agreed it was the right call and we will head down tomorrow.

Adam seems to be struggling a bit today. I think it’s just all the noise and conflicting information getting to him. We all have these moments or days and it’s important we carry each other through them.

Friday, April 24th

The first morning I can remember not being woken by the thwacking of a helicopter overhead. We need to get all squared away this morning and ready to move back down the Khumbu to Pangboche. It’s a six-hour hike, 20km at least. Whatever way you look at it, it’s a fair day’s work.

My team-mates Eanna McGowan and Adam Sweeney are both having some stomach discomfort this morning, which won’t make this march down the valley any easier. They both saw last night’s dinner reappear but the form is good and they are ready to rock. But everyone’s energy was low today. We know it’s the right thing to do but going away from your goal, leaving EBC yet again, is a hard pill to swallow. This was not the scenario we had painted in our heads when we planned all this.

We got through the slog of a day but Jason’s comment “only round the corner” was starting to grind my gears by the end of it. Once we settled in, all was good again and we shared a nice meal in a family-run tea house.

The highlight for me was a young lad, maybe 20, and his younger sister sitting singing pop songs by reading the subtitles, clearly trying to learn English, while huddled around the heater in the middle of the room. I don’t know why but I found the moment somewhat profound.

Life here is worlds away from our western lives and although it may be rose-tinted glasses skewing my perception, I prefer this type of living for its simplicity. The families seem more connected. Maybe by necessity more than desire, but more connected all the same.

Everyone rises and falls with the sun. No alarm clocks, no late nights. Just following the natural course of the sunset and the dawn.

                 A good spot to stop the attritional rot that happens at 5,400m above sea level, both on body and minds

Saturday, April 25th

Today I needed to dig into the toolbox that Karen and I had developed before coming here. Escapism and disassociation. My form was poor and I was deeply conscious not to allow that to impact the group. We feed off each other’s energy so when mine was off kilter I didn’t want that to impact the rest. “Just get me to Namche Bazaar” was all I could think for the first couple of hours, as my knees screeched at me in pain after the descent.

The second part of the journey was much improved and we could all see the light at the end of the tunnel. Jason walked strong today and to me looked powerful. Adam was quieter than usual and Eanna was full of energy.

Once we reached our destination all was good and we indulged deeply in cake, pizzas and everything else that was on offer. A good day in the books. Now time to rest and tune everything back up to optimal before returning to EBC for the last time.

Sunday, April 26th

A slow day today, as it should be. It was all about rest and food and haircuts. The comfort of Namche Bazaar and the thick air compared with EBC is very much welcomed by my head and lungs. The fact that 3,440m now feels like sea level is blissful.

We made our way to an Irish pub this evening and with the GAA+ app on my phone we were able to stream the Donegal and Mayo games. A bad day for both Jason and I, watching our counties beaten in the provincial series.

Namche Bazaar is 3,440m above sea level. The view can be magnificent

We got to catch up with another group of Irish who are heading for EBC and Island Peak. One of them brought me a Mayo flag since mine was left in the kitchen in Ballina before heading off.

Another week done and we wait patiently on some positive news from the icefall before we make our way back up to EBC. I still have a gut feeling everything will work out and we will find a way towards the summit.

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/2026/04/30/padraig-ohoras-everest-diary-this-was-not-the-scenario-in-our-heads-when-we-planned-this/