Post date: Aug 1, 2010 10:26:34 PM

Church Cave

Petie, Pavel, Al

Saturday was taken up by the main aim of the trip, surveying the new finds in Church Cave. Petie and i met up with Pavel in the village in the morning. After the rain of the previous fortnight water was rising and sinking at several other points along the old canal, and also sinking into the small hole. A stream was running from south to north across much of the floor of the Church Cave, and flowing in the rifts and The Cruxifix canal area; the Gaelan Grabber was also wet. Surveying was wet and muddy and completed in about six hours, 160 metres of passage in total. No new stuff was found. We washed up and swam in the river by the abbey car park, to the bemusement of tourists.

Surveying in The Nave

Pollnaimh and Pollróisín

Petie, Pavel, Una & Róisín, Al

On Sunday morning we headed into Cong to check a couple of promising sites. Pollnaimh is reached by crossing the abbey footbridges into Cong wood, turning right, walking down river, and through an old iron gate. Pollnaimh is just after the gate on the right. It's a low, wide bedding plane, and after moving some rocks it was possible to crawl flat out for six or seven metres until the mud floor came too close to the roof. It would be possible to continue digging, and i could see three to four metres continuation ahead, but it wasn't opening up again.

Pollróisín is close to the Pigeon Hole, close under the path. A pot three metres across drops four metres to a pile of dead leaves, and a wide, short rift runs north-south. To the north a boulder floor slopes steeply down to a choke, and digging briefly in the boulders uncovered two dog (or dog-like) skulls and a few assorted bones, suggesting the cave was used similarly to the nearby Wolves Hole (reference). To the south of the entrance pitch a short step up entered a small chamber entirely in calcited boulders. A sketch survey was made.

Pollróisín

Kelly's Cave

Petie, Pavel, Al

While still in caving clobber, we wandered across the village and up to Kelly's Cave. The cave is gated but the gate is lamentably damaged. The main chamber is quite pleasant, very white with stone benches on either side, and lit from a small skylight. At the inner end is a small pool, the 'well', reached by several steps, and from here a flat out crawl runs back towards the entrance, parallel to the main chamber, and formed from the artificial levelling of the floor. The pool looked inviting, with clear water, and was something i'd wanted to check for a while, so after lunch Petie and i returned with diving kit. We did ask for the key in the village tourist office, but were refused. The sump descended to about -1.5 metres down an unstable boulder slope. Petie dug me out after some of the boulders fell in. No prospects without a lot of digging. Petie made a sketch survey of the cave.

Kelly's Cave

Other caves visited included Priest's Hole, Psuedo Priest's Hole and Pigeon Hole (there was no time to explore the 70s extension although water levels were low enough).

All photos by Pavel.