Post date: Jan 18, 2017 7:27:26 PM

Team: Hugh, Eszter, Petie

A recent convert to the cult of cave-digging, Hugh decided to organise a Sunday spotholing trip to identify possible dig sites in Skeagh with a vew to accessing the Easter Extension. We’d slept in the morning so it was 1pm by the time we were heading off from McGourty’s yard. Hugh and Eszter were in hiking gear, I was in yesterday’s muddy caving clobber, ready to ferret down holes if required.

On our way to the Skeagh Holes I checked in on the Killykhegan pots K2 and K3. I'd visited these years before with Adam Whiteside and found a 6m deep potlet in the southernmost hole that ended in an unpromising gravel-choked hole and a tight, possibly undescendable, shaft in the large pothole north of this. I had another look at the tight shaft this time. There is a steep crawl down to the head of the shaft, which looks to be about 4m deep. I had a decent go at the undescendable pot this time around, but found it very committing - a short skinny strong person would have a better chance of getting down and back up. Just before leaving I threw down a rock which clacked down a good 6-8m and clinked against something metal - a scaff bar? COFAC says 8m shaft to a small chamber with choked tubes in the floor.

Moving on we reached Pollahune which was a pretty impressive sight - a loud and dramatic sink in a large closed depression/blind valley. I went off in search of the Pollahune entrance itself, which I found in a large shakehole about 50m north of the sink. You can get in about 10m - a 3m drop in boulders lands you in a stooping rift, then a duck under the wall leads into a bouldery chamber where the floor slopes down to a choked hole which must have been the way on. Loose scuttery boulders everywhere. Must have been proper scary back in the day.

Moving on to the main course, we tramped onwards towards Skeagh Holes. The first one we reached SH1, was hopeless - large and with a sinking stream but solidly choked with clay and boulders and no limestone bedrock in sight.

The next hole SH5 looked equally unpromising - it had a black soggy bottom and a lacklustre trickle coming in at one end, but upon reaching the bottom I found a largeish black hole between boulders dropping into a chamber of some description. This wasn't in the book, and the hole looks to have opened recently and by its own accord. The hole was passable but a large rocking sandstone boulder loomed over the entrance. After ten minutes working with the crowbar this slid into the hole with a clunk and it was safe to enter. A 2.5m drop saw me enter a stooping chamber only about 2-3m in diameter filled with boulders. There were semi-solid-ish looking limestone walls on three sides possibly held together with calcite or mud-glue. A few shadowy gaps to the side and down through the floor were prodded, but there's no obvious potential for more cave unfortunately.

We looked at a few more of the holes before we had to turn due to time - the most interesting of these was SH3, a tiny unassuming sink filled with glass bottles. After passing out the worst of the glass I was able to slither through a drippy wet hole and down a 2m drop into a small drippy rift. About 4m of horizontal passage lead past a rusty scaff bar to a small fluted shaft, about 3m deep and ending in cobbles. I began to descend this but one wall of the shaft - composed of jammed sandstone boulders - began to collapse and I made my way out of this unpleasant hole. The shaft is diggable but it's cramped and a bit unstable and the cave has no stacking space. The report in Irish Speleology 3.2 mentions ‘problems with landsliding excavated boulders’. I suspect a lot of the stacked spoil has fallen back down the shaft.

Still a bunch more Skeagh Holes to properly investigate.

Petie