Team: Petie Barry, Aileen Brown, Roisin Lindsay
Objective: Traverse beyond the pool at the end of the cave and scope out possibilities to connect the cave to Pollbwee.
Time: 4.5 hours
In the summer of 2022 I decided to tackle a resurvey of the Monastir-Pollbwee-Bruces Pot complex at Monastir Cliff. While in Fermanagh midweek I convinced Steve Bus to bunk off work (not that he needed any convincing) and go surveying with me, and so over two afternoon trips we mapped about 235m of passage in Bruces Pot, essentially the entire cave, bar the section beyond the deep pool of water at the northern end of the cave. We were both struck by the strength of the draft above this pool, a strong breeze that rose and fell with the wind outside. Bruces Pot has long been hypothesised to link to Pollbwee to the north and this draft indicated that was indeed the case.
The pool itself has only been crossed once before to my knowledge - presumably by the Reyfad group in a poorly documented trip where they recorded a continuing rift with two more pots dropping to water level the second of which may have a low air space in dry weather leading to Pollbwee. I imagine this trip was done by laddering to the bottom of the pool, swimming along, and climbing up on the far side, or possibly by a fairly bold traverse above the pool.
I was not so bold as to attempt an unprotected traverse - the traverse was about 10m long, with a 6m drop to the water, a slightly sinister inky black pool, apparently 12m deep. About six weeks later I went on a solo trip to bolt the traverse. I entered via the tackle-free Compass Pot entrance to save having to rig the entrance pitch at Bruces. The traverse was accomplished relatively easily, though it was a bit lonely hanging off of a rope above still black pool, with loud water drops echoing around the tall rift, and no-one to keep me company. Four rock screws and a number of naturals on either side were necessary to get across.
At the far side of the pool a narrow climb continues steeply up and some tight crabwalking reaches another traverse. Another pool of static water lay below, 8m down, and while it looked easy (if very exposed) to bridge across I was out rope and lacking the nerve to keep going alone.
Fast forward two and a half years to Christmas 2024, and Roisin, Aileen, and I are back at the top of the traverse on the eve of new years eve to deal with this bit of unfinished business. While I set about calibrating the Disto, Aileen started rigging the traverse. I’d taken out the hangars last time round but left the screws, so it was easy enough to locate the anchor locations. Aileen placed the first three anchors but struggled with the fourth due to my long legs and arms having placed it out of her reach, so I took over for the last bit and tied off on the far side.
I shuffled forwards to the next drop I’d reached the last time round. With a rope tied off around a natural I was able to safely bridge over this, and tie the rope off at another handy natural on the far side. In front of me was a 4m climb down to what looked to be a 4m pitch down to water. As Aileen and Roisin made their way up behind me I rigged the last of our rope off of another natural and slid down to water level. About 1m off the water level the walls undercut and canal passage shot off left, right and centre. We had almost certainly dropped in above the Union Canal in Pollbwee, and therefore connected Bruces Pot to the rest of the Marble Arch system!
There wasn’t enough rope to drop down fully and confirm the connection, and besides, the water was swimming depth in all directions, so we got out the survey gear. The first station was marked with a length of orange cord tied around a natural, easily visible from below. We slowly retreated. Despite having advanced barely 100m into the cave we’d spent nearly two hours getting there, given the amount of rigging involved, and the exit took as long. Roisin had to shoot out ahead of us to cancel the callout.
So this was a very successful trip to round out 2024. In reality the connection was made 50 years earlier, by whoever drew the Grade 1 extension on the map in COFAC, but they didn’t realise where they were at the time, so it’s the Shannon Group who’ll be claiming this discovery! With this connection the Marble Arch System got about 275m longer, gains another 4 entrances (Now 22 in total), and the possibility exists for a sporting SRT through-trip.
- Petie