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Joss Lynam, otherwise known formally as James Perry O’Flaherty, had multiple careers. His military career, his engineering career and his mountaineering career. His mountaineering career is the main contributor to his status today

At just eighteen, Joss arrived in India in order to carry out military service. However, Joss described his time there as “quiet”.

In 1948, upon arriving back to Ireland, Lynam began to study engineering at Trinity College Dublin, located in Dublin’s city centre. During his time at Trinity College Dublin, Lynam and a friend Bill Perrott, founded the Irish Mountaineering Club. One of Lynam’s main priorities for the Irish Mountaineering Club was for it to be open for both men and women. This feministic approach served Lynam well as one of the first female members of the Irish Mountaineering Club would be his soon to be wife. Lynam led to clubs first expedition to the Alps after just eight months of the club being formed. Other expeditions which Lynam was a leady or deputy leader of were to Greenland, the Andes, Kashmir, Tien Shan, Garhwal and Tibet, including the 1987 expedition to Chang-tse.

Being an engineer allowed Lynam to travel to regions of quite mountainous terrain, beginning a cross over in two of his biggest passions, engineering and hill-walking. Lynam was an expert in drystone construction and took his civil engineering job very seriously. One of Lynam’s biggest projects was at the Skellig Michael heritage site in County Kerry, in South-West Ireland, where Joss was the project engineer.

Lynam had completed major expeditions such as the Alps and Mount Kolahoi before solely focusing on his engineering career. However, he described his mountaineering skills as self-taught and is unsure of how he actually survived.

Lynam was involved in the Irish Sports Council for 10 years, giving suggestions for outdoor activities being managed by Vocational Education Committees in Ireland. His volunteering work was recognized in 2005 after he received the Irish Sport’s Council inaugural Sport Volunteer of the Year award.

Lynam also re-analysed mountains in Connemara in 1988, after realizing that Ordinance Survey Maps of the area were inaccurate.

In 1983, Lynam became redundant but remained positive as if gave him time to focus on his love of mountaineering.

In 1991, Lynam and British climber, Mike Banks were joint leaders in a veteran mountaineering trip to Jaonli peak in India, where an earthquake struck nearby within the proximity of only 15km. In 1993, Lynam aided the foundation to the successful first Irish ascent of Everest from his previous leadership of the 1987 expedition to Chang-ste. Lynam led his sixth expedition in 1987 to the Himalayan Peak, Zhanzi at 7,500m at the impressive age of 67 years old, while also recovering from a coronary by-pass at the time.