Adventurer and author Dermot Somers has spent time in the world’s highest, flattest and most remote places, documenting many of his experiences for television. With a new book just out, he tells JUDY MURPHY about his hatred of school, the value of knowing when to accept failure and the importance of a good laugh.

Being a mountaineer offers valuable lessons for life, based on Dermot Somers’s description of what’s involved. You need to put in the effort, have a plan, be fortunate enough to work with like-minded, experienced people, be prepared for the unexpected, hope for a bit of luck – and when things don’t work out as planned, be able to accept that.

“Being able to laugh at the absurdity of things going against you,” is an attribute that author Dermot rates highly.

His latest book, Uncommon Ground: Adventures with Outsiders in Remarkable Terrain, was launched in Charlie Byrne’s recently by journalist Lorna Siggins, a friend since 1993, when she accompanied the first Irish mountaineers who reached the summit of Everest, to base camp.

Not even a storm could curb people’s enthusiasm for the launch and the packed bookshop was treated to stories and slides covering Dermot’s exploits on mountains, desert and in tundra regions, too, as he spoke of his adventures during the 1980s and the 1990s. In those decades, he travelled with nomadic people from all around the globe, documenting his experiences for programmes for RTÉ television and TG4, and writing a memoir and several works of fiction, in English and in Irish.

Several of his adventures are included in Uncommon Ground, which also includes essays and short works of fiction from a man who is still taking to the hills in his 70s, although the peaks these days are not as unforgiving as those he undertook in his younger years.

“I’m lucky that Maeve McPherson [his wife] is also a lover of the outdoors and we’ve done a huge amount of climbing and exploring in remote parts of the world for almost 40 years. But we don’t think of it in terms of years,” he says.

Dermot’s birthday falls on Christmas Eve and he is either 76 or 77, he’s not sure.

“It all begins to dissolve and be irrelevant. It’s a question of how fit you feel. Be out and be doing something and engage with nature. Measure your performance in terms of that, not in calendar years.”

Mountaineering Ireland, the national body for hillwalking and climbing, awarded him the Lynam Award last month in recognition of his contribution to mountaineering, the latest of many accolades for Dermot, who in addition to his Everest success, was the first Irish person to climb the six classic Alpine north faces – and a whole lot more besides. He takes it all in his stride and with a good pinch of self-deprecating humour.

The award, which is named in honour of legendary mountaineer Joss Lynam (1924-2011), requires the recipient to give a lecture to a large audience and while Dermot had prepared this in advance, he was still nervous. But, to his own surprise, he went down the comic route and “the audience seemed relieved”.

He was delighted and honoured to receive the honour but feels that a lot of mountaineering success is “being in the right place at the right time”.

Dermot’s achievements are considerable, but he didn’t start out with a grand plan.

“You find your way into it gradually at a low level of performance and that low level feels fascinating.”

That’s what happened to him in his 20s, because while he and his family spent many summer holidays in remote areas of Conamara, which he loved, “there was no mountaineering in my youth”.

Reared on a farm in Roscommon before the family moved to Dublin, his secondary education was in the city’s Irish-language Coláiste Mhuire, after which he did a BA in UCD, followed some years later by a H Dip in Education.

Dermot’s parents were both primary teachers, but his own schooldays in the 1950s and ’60s weren’t especially happy.

“There was never anything going on that I thought was interesting.”

After college, he worked on the buildings in London, where he enjoyed the city’s thriving music scene and learned about sub-aqua diving.

When he returned to Dublin, he qualified as a teacher, but it wasn’t for him.

Pictured: Dermot credits his childhood on a farm with giving him an ability to communicate with nomadic people across the globe.