McDonnell, Gerard ('Ger') (1971–2008), mountaineer, was born 20 January 1971 in Kilcornan, Co. Limerick, the fourth of five children (three girls and two boys), of Denis (d. 1991) and Gertie McDonnell, dairy farmers. He attended the national school in Kilcornan and secondary school in nearby Askeaton. Despite suffering from asthma, he was an active child who played both Gaelic football and hurling for Kilcornan during his school years. In 1988 he went to Dublin City University and graduated with a degree in electronic engineering. Having received a Morrison visa in 1994, he went to work in the US as a software engineer in Maryland. At DCU he had joined the rock-climbing club and while in the US did some hiking and climbing. Touring America, he arrived in Alaska in July 1997 and was immediately taken by its harsh beauty. He decided to stay, and found work with an engineering company and from 1998 with the Veco oil company. Although based mainly in Anchorage, his work also brought him to northern Alaska and he began to develop his mountaineering skills in the nearby mountains. He was a well-known figure in Anchorage's small Irish community and played the bodhrán in a traditional music group, Last Night's Fun. On 14 June 1999 he climbed Mount McKinley (Denali), the highest mountain in North America (6,168 m), and from then on he was captivated by the beauty of high mountains. McDonnell used the climb to raise IR£15,000 for Milford Hospice, a cancer-care unit in Limerick. On the descent he assisted some climbers who were in difficulty and helped them to safety, and was later awarded the Denali Pro Pin by the Denali National Park rangers for his efforts.
During this time McDonnell kept up his links with Ireland, returning at least once every year and making a point of climbing Carrauntoohill on St Stephen's day. Aside from mountaineering, music and photography were his great interests. He always carried his camera with him on climbing expeditions and took some superb photographs. As well as playing the bodhrán, he was a fine tin-whistle player and singer, happy to lead a singsong on or off a mountain, and was friendly with many Irish musicians. With his broad smile and ready laughter, he made good friends wherever he went and brought to mountaineering a great sense of fun (he celebrated his first ascent of McKinley by playing a bodhrán on the summit).
In 2003 he took part in an Irish expedition to climb Mount Everest. He carried a hurley with him for most of the climb and on the approach to the summit pucked a sliothar off the South Col at a height of about 8,000 m. On 22 May, he and Mick Murphy from Cork reached the summit; McDonnell was the fourth and the youngest Irishman to do so. He was greeted with a warm homecoming reception in Kilcornan on 4 June and in the weeks that followed received much media attention and attended many events, receiving an award from Limerick County Council and meeting President Mary McAleese at Áras an Uachtaráin.
The following year McDonnell helped to organise an expedition to Kunlun in China, which explored and climbed several unknown peaks on the Askai Chin plateau. In 2005 he again climbed Mount McKinley, this time leading an all-Irish team. In 2006 he felt ready to tackle K2, the world's second highest mountain (8,611 m), in the Karakoram range on the Pakistan–China border. Known as the 'savage mountain', K2 is prone to fierce storms and deadly avalanches and is a far more difficult and dangerous technical climb than Everest; one in four of those who have reached the summit have perished on the descent. McDonnell joined an international expedition making the attempt in August 2006, but was hit by a falling rock that cracked his helmet and fractured his skull, and had to be airlifted off the mountain. He had, however, become fascinated by K2 and, although fully aware of its dangers, was convinced that he could climb it and determined to make another attempt. By this time he was a well-known figure in international mountaineering, liked for his affable personality and unflagging good humour, but also respected for his stamina, skills and judgement as a mountaineer. He relished the camaraderie of the international mountaineering community and formed a strong bond with the sherpas and high-altitude porters who accompanied his climbs in the Himalayas, and was always anxious that they be given full credit for their work.
Later in 2006 he had recovered sufficiently to take part in the Irish 'Beyond Endurance' expedition, which crossed South Georgia in Antarctica to honour the achievements of Irish polar explorers such as Ernest Shackleton (qv) and Tom Crean (qv). K2, though, was his great goal, and in May 2008 he was back in Pakistan as part of the Dutch-led Norit expedition. The expedition allowed themselves two months to acclimatise before making their attempt to climb K2 in July. They were held back for weeks by high winds and heavy snowfalls, but on 1 August conditions improved to allow an attempt on the summit.
Several other expeditions were also trying for the summit and they decided to pool their resources, but coordination was poor and resulted in a delayed start on 1 August that cost them valuable daylight. The large numbers ascending on fixed ropes through the narrow gully of the Bottleneck caused further delays, and two climbers fell to their deaths during the ascent. Eventually eighteen climbers reached the summit of K2 on 1 August, with McDonnell becoming the first Irish person ever to do so. By the time the Norit climbers had reached the top it was 7.20 pm, and the sun was already going down. During the descent a large serac (column of ice) fell, killing a climber and sweeping away the fixed ropes required to descend from the summit. Nine climbers including McDonnell were stranded at an altitude of over 8,000 m with no means of descending in the dark. Already exhausted, they had to spend the night in the open in sub-zero temperatures. There are conflicting reports of what happened the next day, but, according to the most reliable accounts, after resuming the descent in daylight on 2 August 2008 McDonnell chose to assist three badly injured climbers from a Korean expedition who had become entangled on a rope. He managed to help free them but all four later perished in a series of serac falls above the Bottleneck. In total, eleven climbers died on K2 on 1–2 August 2008.
McDonnell's body was not found, but he is commemorated by several plaques, including one on the Gilkey Memorial on K2, one at the top of Carrauntoohill, and another erected by his American friends on King Mountain in Alaska. A memorial mass held in Kilcornan on 17 August 2008 to celebrate his life attracted thousands of mourners, including many of his climbing companions. Gerard's family and his partner, Annie Starkey, promoted his memory in ventures such as the Gerard McDonnell memorial fund to assist the children of the Pakistani and Nepalese climbers who died on K2 in August 2008. There is also an annual Ger McDonnell memorial cycle dedicated to his memory, commemorating a trip he took in 2007, when he cycled from Kilcornan to Doolin, Co. Clare (a return journey of 230 km), to post a letter. In 2009 DCU introduced a scholarship fund in his memory, and that year some Dutch friends named a peak in Greenland after him. In 2010, after a nomination by Mountain Rescue Ireland, McDonnell's family received the Targa d'Argento Pinzolo gold medal on his behalf for his efforts to assist fellow climbers on K2. His singing and bodhrán playing featured on the album Pulling out the stops (2010), produced by his friend and fellow band member Dan Possumato to mark the second anniversary of his death. The summit (2012), a documentary film about the 2008 K2 disaster written by Mark Monroe and directed by Nick Ryan, which focused on the circumstances of McDonnell's death, won the prize for the best feature documentary at the Irish Film and Television Awards in 2014.