Poll na Bliana Úire^* (Oct 2020, Steve Muh, Aileen, Jock - 3hrs)

Much has changed on the surface in and around the Cavan Burren over the 4-5 years since our last unsuccessful attempt at capping open the small splashy tube amongst the loose boulder pile at the very bottom of Poll na Bliana Úire. There is definitely an increase in picnicking traffic and socially distant family/Sunday walkers. A lot of the replanted forestry has been growing back quite quickly after the felling across much of the lost valley. The visitors centre and car park are looking good and well maintained. The whole area is one of the nicer informative honey pot site developments to have been set up in the Geopark over the past few years so looking forward to future health and safety closures and car parking fees!

Underground Poll na Bliana Úire remains much as I remembered. Granted, the rather squalid entrance squeeze and window squeeze both felt like they had been enlarged slightly since our previous visits. 2 of the spit bolts at the start of the traverse and first pitch^** are clogging up so it’s getting difficult to screw the hangers in fully. The rest of the pitches felt a little more stable than they did during some of our previous visits apart for the final scaffed^*** hanging boulder pile.

Anyway happy to report that 3 litres of dye have been safely delivered to the end courtesy of Drs Kelly and Brown. So fingers crossed for a quick positive trace to Shannon rather than the Arney catchment :)

Jock

^*Correct spelling as noted in IS24.

^**IS22 notes pitch 1 as starting immediately after the second squeeze. This pitch is easy free climbed, wearing an SRT kit through the first 2 entrance squeezes is not recommended.

^***IS22 notes that 2 scaff bars were installed amongst 2 intimidating overhanging troll boulder nestled about the 4th/5th pith head. There is actually only one scaff bar propping up the 2 troll boulders above the final splashy boulder chamber. The 2nd backup scaff bar was never fully installed so Steve Muh and Aileen insisted on bringing this back out to daylight as apparently they know of another cave that is hungry for scaff. However, we can always carry this piece of scaff back down to the bottom to further brace the trolls once digging levels are suitably enthused to get back to work on cracking open the terminal orifice so we can follow the water onwards towards the trans-Burren-Shannon master system.