His feet split open and bled. Thorns and glass shards pierced his soles. He even had to pause walking for a week after an infection from a thorn bush injury. Still, he didn’t stop. Ireland’s Eamon Keaveney endured all this to walk 6,805 kilometres barefoot over 369 days.
In doing so, Keaveney took his own previous record for the longest barefoot walk to a new height.
To reclaim his record, Keaveney began walking this time from Istanbul, Turkey. After 369 days, he reached his hometown of Claremorris in County Mayo, Ireland, on March 7.
Along the long route, Keaveney had to cross varied and hilly terrain and battle adverse weather conditions.
Keaveney first set this record in 2016, walking 2,080 kilometres barefoot across Ireland. Poland’s Pawel Durakiewicz broke that record in 2024, walking 3,409 kilometres barefoot.
This time, Keaveney walked nearly double Durakiewicz’s distance. This isn’t Keaveney’s only record for a daring feat, though. In 2023, he set another record, crossing Ireland on a unicycle in just five days, five hours and 23 minutes.
Eamon Keaveney, a 34-year-old civil servant, told Guinness World Records: “Ever since I first set the long-distance barefoot walking record, I’d been thinking about going on another big journey. After walking across one country, crossing a continent felt like the natural next step. So I decided to walk from Istanbul back to my home country, Ireland.”