Post date: Feb 13, 2017 11:26:33 PM

Team: Petie, Éabha, Richard.

A Sunday afternoon trip to check the remainder of the Skeagh Holes looked at with Hugh and Eszter a few weeks previously. Plus a bonus trip to the Pollboy and Pollowen sinks. This time we approached via the southern leg of the Garvagh Loop, and parked at the house of Jim and Maria Fee, who’d previously (2008) showed Bus, Fat Tony and a few other around the area.

Maria accompanied us up the lane to the turn off to the Skeagh Holes and walked up the remainder of the lane ourselves. To get to the Skeagh holes you pass through a pleasant land of small green limestone knolls, eventually reaching a boggier turfier section further up with all the holes on it. We plodded about for a bit and looked at all the holes remaining. SH4 and SH2 were the most promising.

SH4 was described as having a ‘tight 3m squeeze entering a sand and mud filled shaft. This was being dug but the chamber is now filled with spoil from the shaft dig and a boulder has blocked the entrance’. The doline was smallish and unassuming, but had a large limestone erratic sitting at the bottom of it. Éabha cleared back some of the undergrowth and revealed a small hole dropping into the chamber. Rich gamely attempted to squeeze down into the hole in his raincoat, but was in up to his neck and couldn’t feel the ground. Should be possible to get in though - bring a long person and a handline for getting out.

SH2 was the other one that looked like it might repay a visit with tools. SH2 is actually a series of 5 shakeholes in a row, with the middle one containing a few outcrops of clean limestone. There was a number of dig options here, the most promising was a clean-washed wet-weather sink. The book mentioned that a dig had been abandoned at some tight fluted tubes, but it doesn’t say how hard they tried to dig it.

SH5 was revisited. This is where Hugh and I broke into a small new cave on the last visit. Éabha popped in for a look and soon popped back out again. I poked the black mud at the other end of the hole and think it might be worth a dig - it could open up a hole in boulders like at the opposite side. I’d do it in the summer though, when the mud has dried out a bit more.

After this we headed back to Garvagh. The Fees showed us a sink next to their house, and consulting The Shannoneer (pp 25-27) I later found that this is called the 1987 dig. This is covered over with branches and steel sheeting since it’s about 10m from their house, but Eáhba poked her head in and could see just mud and boulder walls. Jim reckoned it’s gotten bigger with erosion in the years since he’s lived there. After saying our goodbyes to the Fees, we headed down the road and at the turn off for Pollowen we parked the car and headed off for a look-se. Pollowen is one of the major sinks feeding Shannon Pot, and probably joins the Shannon streamway somewhere downstream of Just Try Me. It is however as the book described - a hoplessly choked sink. It looks quite young too - sinking into glacial drift and almost at the same level as the fields around it.

Since Pollboy was nearby I led the way over the fields to the sink. This was an interesting site. A big wide sink complex, with choked bouldery holes all over the place. Evidently it backs up in flood and all the branches around are covered in a dusty coating of mud. most of the the stream gurgles down into some holes under a fallen tree, but further west we found some older dry sinks in bedrock, clearly active in flood. One such hole was a relatively new feature, having eaten into a field, and full of freshly collapsed soil. It also had some fresh fencing around it. I pulled out a bit of muck and could see a narrow limestone rift dropping on down. A lot of clearing needs to be done however. The other was a fairly mature hole, the furthest west, 2m deep and choked, but with a coil of wire (for bang?) sitting in the mud. Possibly this is one of the holes that was opened in the past, and looks as if it might easily be re-opened.

The description for Pollboy in COFAC is a bit confusing, and mentions two caves of about 100-150m long, accessed from apparently different holes, but it’s not clear where the holes are in the sink complex. It’s worth another bit of poking with some tools to see if these could be regained, or a new set of passages entered.

Petie