Pollkeeran, Bluebell season, 09 May 2021
Muh, Michal, Donncha and Jock (3hrs)
It feels like a long time since my last visit to PollKeerán to help deliver some antisocially long pieces of scaff with Aileen last summer so I was pleasantly surprised to see the amount of progress that has been made at the pointy end since my last visit. The main chamber above the dig shaft is looking relatively stable, tidy and well organised and I was glad to see one of the jock plus pieces of scaff that I had dragged in on my last visit get put to good use today.
The team rendezvoused at the church in time for a nice 11 am Sunday start after mass. Thankfully we weren’t packing any scaff so it was a nice enjoyable beautiful spring dander up through the bluebell and primrose rich Boho countryside up to the cave. Approaching the main dig chamber Steve Muh noticed that some of the cracks in the lintel stone over the entrance above the head of the dig appeared to have grown so we held up for a little bit while Muh and I placed a couple of additional braces underneath the entrance squeeze just in case our way out might decide to shift at some point. Muh nipped down to the bottom of the main dig shaft from there (which I am happy to report is now well over 2 Steve’s deep) and Michal and Donncha joined us for their first visit to the main digging chamber.
Aim of the day was to try to clear a large gritstone boulder and install some more scaff bars to brace the bottom of the shaft. As it turned out no caps were need as the gritstone boulder split into more manageable smaller blocks after a few failed attempts at firing caps. The Breifne boys kindly loaned us a good digging bucket for the day which helped a lot with a few rotations and vertical hauls. We cleared most of the remaining loose, bigger boulders from the floor of the shaft and created enough room to allow us to peak through into a small but more stable looking space running slightly back underneath the dig shaft between a couple of large solid looking boulders.
The base of the shaft is now notably fresh with a pleasant draft. Poking around the gravel and pulling smaller boulders from the floor revealed a few voids and another meter or so of potentially easier progress downwards. Poking my head in as far as I could at floor level my over-enthusiastic imagination was convinced that I could hear a faint sound of water in the distance... However, needless to say, we are going to need more scaff and a good digging bucket for hauling. We need more connectors as we used up the last of them today. It is also becoming a 3-4 people minimum dig (one on the pointy end, one at the top of the main dig shaft, one to help with the transition and another dry stone wall maker underneath the entrance lintel).
Lovely Sunday trip, not sure if it was the enforced sabbatical but I’m definitely feeling a lot more enthused about the potential for progress in PollKeerán, especially with a few more than welcome helping hands from the Breifne boys.
Jock