For centuries, the Irish landscape was mined for valuable natural resources, such as iron, marble and even gold, and today, there is a modern attempt toreclaim our mining heritage. Mary Mulvihill reports.
Glendalough is famous for its picturesque scenery and monastic ruins. But the scenic Wicklow valley was also once a bustling industrial site; in the mid-1800s Glendalough, and the neighbouring valleys of Glendasan and Glenmalure, formed Ireland's biggest lead mine. Had you visited Glendalough then, the lasting impression would have been of a noisy and dusty mine works, not a quiet monastic ruin.
At their peak, these Wicklow lead mines employed over 1,000 miners, labourers and tradesmen, and supported a local community of several thousand more souls. In the upper end of Glendalough Valley you can still see miners' tracks, spoil heaps, ruined buildings, and ore crushing floors.
Wild goats there are reputedly descended from animals the miners kept, and trees on the surrounding hillsides were planted by the mining companies for timber. Yet Glendalough's visitor centre makes no mention of this industrial history.
Is it that we Irish see industry as something dirty, to be forgotten, not celebrated as heritage? Were you aware, for instance, that the oldest copper mine in northwest Europe is on Ross Island at Killarney? That Wicklow had a gold rush in 1795? That gold and salt are mined in Ireland today? That Navan has one of the world's largest zinc mines?
Contrast this with England and Wales, where "industrial heritage" is widely recognised, and where old mines and mills are successful tourist attractions.
But change is in the air: visitors can now descend a 19th century lead mine in Connemara, and follow a trail around Killarney's historic mine sites; a coal mining museum opens later this spring at Arigna in Co Roscommon, and a similar one is planned for Castlecomer in Co Kilkenny.
The Mining Heritage Trust of Ireland (MHTI) and the Industrial Heritage Association of Ireland (IHAI), both of which started in the 1990s, are also spreading the word. And there is much to talk about, for Ireland is riddled with old mines.
Take Killarney, another former mining town in a famous beauty spot. Thanks to geological accidents, Killarney sits on a mineral-rich seam that runs across west Kerry, through the Beara Peninsula to Kenmare, and contains copper, lead, zinc, even silver and cobalt.
Excavations during the 1990s, under archaeologist Dr William O'Brien, revealed that Killarney's earliest copper mines - which are little more than shallow caves in the rock wall at Ross Island - are 4,500 years old, the oldest known in northwest Europe. Arguably, Ireland's Bronze Age began here.
Ross Island copper has a distinctive chemical fingerprint, and archaeologists have found Bronze Age artefacts in Britain made of this metal, proof that Killarney had strong trade links with Britain then, and that its mineral riches were widely known.
There have been mining activities at various sites around Killarney down the centuries, and in the 1820s there was talk of draining Killarney's main lake to make mining easier. In the end, tourism won out, the lake was left, and in 1829 the last mine closed, and the site was landscaped. Visitors who follow the Ross Island trail, however, can see the remains of old mines, including flooded mine shafts.
The same mineral seam was mined at Kenmare, a mining town established by the Cromwellian planter and entrepreneur, Sir William Petty, and at Allihies on the Beara Peninsula. The Allihies copper mines, fictionalised in Daphne Du Maurier's novel, Hungry Hill, closed in the 1880s, but the hillside remains riddled with treacherous, flooded mine shafts.
Among the ruins, is the world's only surviving purpose-built "man engine house", which the MHTI is campaigning to conserve. A man engine was a kind of primitive escalator. A series of wooden ladders, worked by a steam engine, carried miners up and down the deep mine shafts. Only 19 were ever built, and only one in Ireland.
Connemara is another scenic spot that boasts numerous old mines, alongside world-famous marble quarries. The mines were small, developed mid-19th century by local landlords. At their peak about 300 miners worked the seams of lead, silver and zinc; the ore was shipped via Lough Corrib to Galway.
Glengowla mine, on the Geoghegan family farm at Oughterard, is now open to the public. Lead, silver and zinc were mined there between 1850-1865, and the mine produced four kilos of silver in its first two years.
The beautiful Vale of Avoca in Co Wicklow, is home to arguably the greatest of Irish mines: rich in gold, silver, copper, lead, zinc, sulphur and iron, the valley was mined almost continuously since prehistoric times, and the last pit closed only in 1982.
Nearby is Croghan Mountain, scene of the 1795 gold rush, when hundreds of people flocked to try their luck panning. In six weeks they collected 28 kilos of gold, worth a staggering £5,000 then. The river gravel there has since been panned for gold, most recently in the 1960s.
In the early 1600s a planter, Sir Charles Coote, started major iron works at Sliabh an Iarainn (Iron Mountain) in Co Leitrim. They were last worked in the 1870s, but remains of old furnaces and slag heaps survive.
Ireland is not normally thought of as a coal-producing country, yet coal was mined on an industrial scale at Arigna from 1770 until the last mine there closed in 1990; at Castlecomer, from 1630 to 1969, and at Slieve Ardagh, Co Tipperary, from the 1650s until the 1980s.
All of which leaves little space to tell you about the Silvermines, or Ben Bulben's barytes mine, Co Antrim's salt mines and chalk quarries, Lough Neagh's unusual diatomite clays, Co Cavan's gypsum deposits, and much more besides. But enough hopefully, to convince you of Ireland's rich mining tradition.
Mary Mulvihill's book about Ireland's industrial and scientific heritage, Ingenious Ireland, is published by TownHouse.
Get out and about
• Visit Glengowla mine, near Oughterard in Connemara (Tel: 091 552360; open Sat-Sun, and daily March-Nov).
• Walk the trail at Ross Island, Killarney, prepared by archaeologist Dr William O'Brien.
• Tour Castlecomer's coal mining district with former miner Seamus Walsh (Tel: 056 444 1504, groups only, by appointment).
• Explore Avoca's mining heritage with geologist Nick Coy (Tel: 045 866 400, groups only, by appointment).
• Visit Slieve Ardagh Heritage Centre, Killenaule (Tel: 052 56165, Mon-Fri).
• Follow the Miner's Way, a 50-km walking route around Arigna's coal mining district, where a mining museum opens later this spring.
• Join the MHTI (c/o 36 Dame St, Dublin 2 www.mhti.ie) and the IHAI (c/o An Taisce, Tailor's Hall, Dublin 8 www.steam-museum.ie/ihai).
Underground riches
Antimony, barytes, bauxite (aluminium), chalk, coal, cobalt, copper, gold, gypsum, iron, lead, lignite, marble, salt, silver, sulphur and zeolite have all been mined or quarried in Ireland.
Today, lead and zinc are mined at Navan, Lisheen and Galmoy, salt at Carrickfergus, gypsum at Kingscourt, and gold near Omagh (buy some Irish gold at www.galantas.com). Meanwhile, exploration companies continue prospecting for gold in Monaghan, and diamonds in Donegal.