A Man for Others: What Eight Days in the Atlas Mountains Taught Us About Andrew
I sit on Andrew's Fundraising Committee, though I want to be upfront that I don't know Andrew well personally. What I know of him comes mostly through his brother Alex, and through two events that I found quite inspirational.
The first was hearing Alex speak at our Past Pupils' Union's 75th anniversary dinner. The second, hearing Andrew speak at the Gonzaga Business Lunch a few months’ later (in between, I had an accident requiring surgery which left me temporarily disabled and dependent on others). Both spoke with the same quiet strength, eloquence and resilience.
What struck me most, listening to Andrew, was how he framed his own experience. He spoke about the values he took from his school years, and about leaning on old friendships in the time since his accident, friendships that have carried real weight when it mattered. He spoke about having always wanted to work with his hands, about being drawn back to his ancestor’s home in West Cork, about a life built around nature and natural materials.
And then he spoke about the Jesuit idea every Gonzaga boy grows up hearing: being a man for others. Since his injury, he said, he'd felt that flip: he'd become dependent on others, rather than able to be there for them. How tough must that be?
But he was clear that, in time, with the right support, he believes he can get back to contributing in that way again. It will take time to make that transition, in headspace as much as anything else. That's precisely why we want to help him get there: because of how much he has to give, and has already given, to the people around him.
It's also, if I'm honest, an invitation to look at ourselves: at what we're each capable of doing for others, and whether we're doing it.
Why we went to the mountains
Last month, eight of us walked into the Atlas Mountains of Morocco for a week, in Andrew's name. A few weeks before we left, an episode of RTÉ's Uncharted with Ray Goggins happened to feature the same range: sheer limestone, snow on the higher ground, a shared fear of heights. Watching it gave us an honest preview of what we were walking into. Arid. Vast. Unforgiving in places. Beautiful.
We were led by Paul Gleeson, who has rowed the Atlantic, led an Arctic expedition, and cycled across Australia, and by Jason Black, one of Ireland's foremost mountaineers, fresh off leading the Irish expedition to Everest. At our final kit call, Paul told us plainly that he expected all of us, himself included, to hit a point where mind and body wanted to quit. Coming from a man who has rowed an ocean, that was sobering. It was also useful: knowing the wall is coming is half the battle.
Phones stayed off for the week. No signal anyway, no podcasts, no downloaded audiobooks, just battery enough for a watch and a headtorch. What we had instead was a journal each, a half-read book, and each other.
Off the marked path
Most people fly into Marrakesh, take the bus up the valley, and climb Toubkal on a well-worn trail. We didn't. Jason's local team, led by Mohammed and Hassan, saw what the group could handle and quietly redrew their own plan around us: seven summits in four days instead of the original route, with proper technical climbing added in. We were told what each day held only that morning, sometimes only the night before. Part of the point was learning to accept what the mountain gave us, rather than trying to control it in advance.
That left a spare day, which we spent as guests rather than tourists, cooking tajine from scratch, then sitting for hours with Mohammed’s father, Hassan, a village elder, over tea. Faith, marriage, the respect shown to the women and matriarchs in that household, and, unexpectedly, how close Islam and Christianity actually sit at the root, before centuries of small divergences hardened into the divisions we've inherited. Men from entirely different worlds, in one room, with no friction anywhere in it. Just curiosity and respect. I feel Andrew would have enjoyed that.
We barely saw another tourist the whole week, thanks entirely to Mohammed and Hassan choosing to walk us somewhere different.
The rocks we carried
My own ankle, broken, with torn medial ligaments last November, turned out to be the smallest part of my experience in Morocco, though it didn't feel that way going in. Being a fairly active person, I found it genuinely tricky to adjust to depending on others, even for a short period a month either side of the new year. My surgeon told me to reconsider taking part in this expedition altogether; the plates, screws and bolts holding things together needed time to settle before I put them through repeated 1,400m of elevation gain a day, on rough terrain.
I went anyway, because the goal had become a genuine gift rather than a burden. It kept me honest through rehab in a way nothing else would have. And out on the mountain, the exposure was the real test regardless: sheer drops, all four limbs on rock, poles strapped to the pack. Two of the group got properly sick the day we did three summits, including Toubkal itself, and kept going anyway. One foot in front of the other. No drama to it, just refusal to stop. Humbling to watch up close.
At the top, we built a small cairn. Each of us placed one rock and held someone in mind while we did it.
I thought of my parents. My grandparents. Friends I've lost recently. And I thought of Andrew. It was a quiet few minutes. Nobody rushed it.
Even managing one careful step at a time, on ground I could still feel under my own feet, felt like a privilege by the end of that week. I'm conscious that's not a privilege Andrew currently has.
Why this, for Andrew
Andrew is a man for others. That's not a slogan, it's how the people who know him best actually describe him, and it's how he described his own hope for himself. His life was turned upside down in May 2025, when an accident left him with a catastrophic neck injury. He now requires round-the-clock care, for the rest of his life. The State covers part of that. The rest depends on people choosing to help.
By investing in Andrew's recovery and care now, we give him back the ability to do for others what he's spent his life doing already, just on the other side of a much harder road than the one we walked for a week in Morocco.
Where things stand
Between direct donations to the expedition and a series of posts shared on LinkedIn along the way, we've now raised over €10,000 for Andrew’s cause, a genuine reminder of how much goodwill is out there once people hear Andrew's story properly. Thank you to my expedition buddies for their promotion of this great cause, and to all who have donated.
Thank you, sincerely, for your support and for anything you're able to give.
Jasper Walshe
