Shannon Cave, Bus Pass & Orange Hall 20th & 27th September 2025

Weekend 1 – 20/09/2025

Team: Aileen Brown, Ethan Hanley, Paul McCarron, Oisín Keating Mac Dermott

Objective: Continue the dig in the same direction as previous trips, widen the area around the Sandy Chamber and bus pass

Duration: 9 hours approx.

The day kicked off at 4.45am since I was coming from Dublin. After frying rashers for sambos and packing my gear I headed to Blacklion. Up to now I ‘d never been on a Shannon dig trip, and with much anticipation we packed the cars and headed to the farmyard. After a brief call to Ethan to collect the rope (that we hadn’t forgotten, just chosen not to bring to save weight) we rejigged the bags and headed to the cave. As I grabbed my wellies I realised I’d forgotten kneepads, but as we say to first years in student caving “they’re optional”.

The pace was very quick compared to all of the horizontal caving I’d done before. Rebirth was surprisingly comfy to get through, a clear sign of hard work put in since the flood. I had it easy on the way down with no bag – a tradeoff for carrying the awkward (but lighter) bag on the way out. We made it down to Agnahoo in decent time, having refreshed ourselves at swingers’ corner. I’m still yet to perfect the technique. Aileen & Paul took plenty of photos along the way to show off the post-flood waterlines. After some slow but apparently contaminant-free water filtering with Paul, we headed up the climb. The sketchiness of it was a solid 5/10, with a handline helping (although it could be even nicer… more on that later).

When we got up to the top of the climb, we were in what appeared to be an underground beach with about 60cm of ground clearance. After some wayfinding, we reached the sand pit. Whoever was in this section before must have paid for extra headroom – we could finally crawl a bit more naturally. Less than 5 minutes later we reached the dig site, or “coal face”. It was a greyish brown mud wall at the end of a clearly previously dug tunnel, which was to be myself and Aileen’s job for the day. The new garden shovel – 10 year warranty included – had made it underground for the first time (not to be confused with the even newer ergonomic, streamlined, peanut-free digging tool) and proved to be a bit awkward for digging solid mud. After a couple of rotations Aileen elected to swap it for the original trenching tool, which had a lot more leverage to it. Meanwhile Paul and Ethan were clearing sand from the turn off to Bus Pass, which made the return journey a luxurious few metres. Aileen and myself packed up after clearing “an optimistic ten metres”.

After a few hours of digging I found out that rasher sambos do travel well, even when the drybag’s been abused for the whole trip. With energy on board we returned to the face, and dug until about 17:35. We repacked the gear and set off on the return leg. With everyone in get out mode by this stage, we had a few brief water stops on the way up with Paul now sentenced to drinking from the “peanut free” bottle. 

Got to the surface at about 20:30, and thanks to Aileen & Les rather than driving back to Dublin with what little energy I had left, I had a decent nights sleep (with sore knees).

Weekend 2 – 27/09/2025

Team: Eoghan Mullan, Steve MacNamara, Jock Reid, Oisín Keating Mac Dermott, Aidan Geraghty, Jamie Clarke

Objective: Dig in the same place, bolt and re-rig the climb with the boulder of death, plug and feather the lead past the Orange Hall

Duration: 10 hours approx.

Having stayed in the Scout Hut the night before with Aidan & Jamie the morning was considerably more relaxing. We fried up a few bits before heading to Shannon, with a few last-minute purchases on the way. Paul had successfully roped the three of us in to give a hand with digging, and being a group of six we had enough energy to get a few different things done.

Two weekends, two new tools – we were shown the aerodynamic, lightweight, ultra-efficient digging tool before packing the bags, this time including two drills and several batteries. We brought plenty of snacks and were expecting a long day, and rotated bag-carrying duties on the way down. We headed underground around 11.30, slightly slower pace than the week before as we showed our age and inexperience. The lads gave us a masterclass in how to not get wet at Swingers’, Jock getting a full douze points.

When we reached the Orange Hall we split into two groups – Eoghan, Jock, Jamie and Aidan headed straight for the dig face while Steve and myself went to the lead around the corner (or rather down two very tight squeezes and diagonally up to an awkward looking boulder facing us). Steve broke out the drill and we made the most of two batteries, plug-and-feathering our way to success – or rather a slightly-less-narrow version of the still impassable squeeze that remained. After an hour and a half or so, with two now drained batteries, we headed towards the dig. Once we reached the climb what lay before us was a sight for sore eyes: a newly rigged handline alongside the old one, freshly bolted, boulder of death now irrelevant for the most part. After a much faster climb we crawled out way around the sand pit and up to the dig site, where Aidan had crafted some beautiful statuettes of all the team out of mud – it’s worth the journey just for this, but if you’re down there bring a shovel.

We dug for a couple of hours before finally calling it a day. Efficiency at it’s best; we rotated the digging every ten minutes and packed mud as we went. We carried on with this process, the roof clearance slightly narrowing as we dug, and veering to the right hand side as you face the tunnel. The new tool proved itself to work just as well as the old one.

Got back to the surface at around 23:30, this time drove back to Dublin as I’d passengers to keep me awake.

- Oisín