Shannon Cave (Pollahune), 12 July 2009 and Diarmaid & Grainne's Cave, 13 July 2009
Post date: Jul 29, 2009 11:50:04 AM
Sunday trip: Tony Furnell, Toby Hamnett, Roisín Lindsay, Stephen Macnamara; ~5 hrs
Monday trip: Tony Furnell, Roisín Lindsay, Stephen Macnamara, Eoghan Mullan, Emma Ross; ~3 hrs
Trip to continue survey of inlet back towards JCP/Main Stream passage, and the next day's investigation of Dermot & Grania's Cave in Gleniff, Co. Sligo
A contender for the caption competition?
So early Sunday, morning of The 12th, survey faff group 4 (apparently) set off from Belfast in their respective vehicles up the motorway encountering the odd surprise infringement of the 'no marches on the Sabbath' rule along the way but otherwise finding a pleasantly, almost zombie-movie deserted road to Blacklion, where breakfast could be had at TOP (that's right, nowhere does it say Bloodstones!) and Muh could be met, if not a little later than expected due to Tony being charmed into forgetfulness by being delivered there in a convertible. After leaving my car behind, parked precariously behind Eoghan's on a hill at a cautious distance, we headed up to McGourty's yard where we found the fine man himself dressed in his Sunday best. After everyone had their say on how best to charge his new tractor battery (no consensus was reached, something about 12V and 24V), yet more painstaking faffing continued in the form of waiting for 3 grown men to get themselves dressed and ready. Eventually we made our way up the hill through the Jurassic forest of ferns, which completely engulfed me and Steve, and waited some more. After what seemed like a long time the 4 of us descended the pitch and made our way to Pollahune, with Toby finding the emergence out of Rebirth a tricky manoeuvre unique to each of us.
We entered this unassuming inlet, trudging upstream to the last survey point at which Tony, Aileen and Al had stopped on a previous trip. After a while we found our surveying groove (mostly after we got away from the noisier part of the streamway, which hindered communication) and some progress was made until we stopped after 14 or 15 stations, much to Steve's dismay, and decided to make our way out. Of note, in an otherwise pleasant yet mundane and spray filled piece of cave, was one smallish chamber which has an albeit small but pretty sloping false floor-esque shelf, which is covered in a delicious-looking honeycomb-coloured formation, which I henceforth propose be dubbed either The Hunepot or The Hunecomb (Hunepot seems slightly misleading, non?), oh, the Hunepot sounds better, The Hunepot it is! A return trip is necessary to finish surveying the last bit of winding wet passage which meets up with the main streamway. Having initially been pleased that it was a wet passage filled with easy flowing and easily accessible drinking water, I now in retrospect see it as a treacherous Aladdin's cave for the thirsty/bored caver. Foul gluttony! That water was full of evil and consequently so was my bathroom! On our way out we met with the overnighters at the bottom of Tullyard and, greeted by a lovely evening on the bog, made our way in convoy fashion to Blacklion's Got Talent where they seemed to prove that it was the boys from Mayo and not themselves who had the talent. Eoghan was kind enough to allow us our drink and drive Tony, Bus, Muh and myself to the Hoo where Artur and Al had just tucked themselves into bed, only to be roused with some fine beer and fine company.
Diarmaid & Grainne's Cave
Survey: PDF
Tony surveying in Pollahune
The Hunecomb or The Hunepot
Closeup of its gooey sweetness
The next day all who were not stricken (and some who were, I'm looking at you Jock) or had other places to be (I'm looking at you Bus), i.e. Jock, Emma, Eoghan, Tony, Steve Muh and me headed to Sligo to Diarmaid and Grainne's Cave. After Jock got the permission of the Bull, who is apparently posing as the landowner, and gave his daughter the survey we headed to the base of the massive sweeping hill with the spectacular gaping cave entrance looming large above us. When the faffing of pathetic proportions had ceased we started our ascent of the hill in packs of 2 when, half way up, inclement weather tried to rain and blow us off the bloody hill but indeed the view from the huge mouth at the top was well worth it. The cave itself is pretty interesting. Others may be able to give a better description but suffice to say its most outstanding quality was how dirty it was. There was quite a lot of rubbish, at least in the entrance and loads of evidence of fires, it probably receives quite a number of non caving visitors. Many of the large chambers are covered in moonmilk and the cave generally has quite a lot of flowstone and lots and lot of bones which interests me at least, it being so close to Poll na mBear. The many large chambers are floored by large boulders through which the way on is found down a couple of climbs to another chamber where there was a tarp and other paraphernalia from an old dig. The boys scrambled around for a while through a crawl which loops back into the chamber but by this time I was in no mood having been soaked on the way up and frozen by the draft, after 2.5 hours it was time to go. Needless to say getting down the hill was much easily than going up. Although the complete lack of friction on my arse that I'm accustomed to was scary for me, Eoghan, not bothered in the slightest, slid practically the whole way to the car. Pretty cave, would like to go back for longer on a nicer and less hung over day. We packed up and headed home, little realising that a salty time bomb was ticking in our tummies! Roisín
Long way to go....
View from the entrance chamber
Tony, SMuh and Eoghan admire the view
Emma on the way down; fixed ropes are in place for part of the climb