Post date: Apr 28, 2011 4:10:39 PM

Report: Tony Furnell

I've done some (read: very little) cave prospecting in the Tralee area over the last year or so; this part of Kerry has a large number of cave sites documented with very few cavers revisiting them, and I daresay a large number of undocumented sites too. The best references for the area can be found in Colin Bunce's most recent copy of Caves of County Kerry (currently unpublished), which itself takes most of its material from previous volumes of Irish Speleology (namely Jones and Parkes, vol. 15, 1995) and Coleman's Caves of Ireland (1965).

For the sake of documentation, I've included here a couple of surface recces that I made which might help others checking out the area.

Fenit area:

Lisodigue Cave (also Lisodeige Cave)

February 2010

Present: TF, Lina Liuberskyte

The first cave site I visited in Kerry was Lisodigue Cave, outside the hamlet of Ardfert and close to Church Hill. Lina and I had a look for the entrance with a view to returning on another day with caving gear, but as yet this hasn't happened. The cave is off the road running east from Church Hill (it's a church on a hill, you can't miss it). At a prominent dog-leg in the road, a small cottage lies on the corner on the left, an old disused farmyard is straight ahead and a farm gate leads into a field on the right. Through the gate, follow the outer wall of the farmyard to the left, and continue to follow the fence running afterwards to a small tree-lined depression in the corner of the field. The entrance is a free-climbable pot, some 2 metres across and 2 metres down.

We spoke with the owner of the adjacent cottage, who told us that the landowner (J. Kirby) lives in the next two-storey house along the road to the east. On a couple of visits (February and early summer) I've found the house unoccupied, so I have yet to meet him. Coleman provides a good description of the cave and IS v15 reports 210 metres of passage, but I have yet to see a survey.

Tralee area:

Ballybeggan Cave or Ballybeggan Pot

February 2010

Present: TF, LL

The Ballybeggan area is on the east side of Tralee, and slap bang in the middle of it is Tralee's greyhound track. Old maps of this area (see OSi Mapviewer, first series) show a line of sites labelled "Cave" running south along a riverbed which marks the rear boundary of the track. Lina and I cycled to Ballybeggan castle, which lies in a farmyard at the end of a small cul de sac running along the north boundary of the track. The road is lined with new houses, the last of which on the left we stopped at to speak to the resident. The man we spoke to is the nephew of the landowner of the castle, adjacent farmyard and the fields behind the racetrack, and knew of one cave: the one that used to be in his front garden before he filled it in and tarmac'd it over. It now unfortunately lies under a driveway, and I'm not entirely sure which cave it was as the grid references in IS v15 seem a little contentious. He described it as a deep pot requiring a ladder though, so I imagine it was Ballybeggan Pot.

We asked about the landowner and were directed to the house opposite; an older house on the right of the road, closest to the farmyard. Unfortunately again no one was present, but we were told to seek a J. P. Daly. His nephew said that Daly is very knowledgeable of the area and would be able to direct us to any of the cave sites on his land; as yet I haven't been able to make contact with him. This road seemed at the time to be the best direction to access the rear wall of the greyhound track and the historical line of cave sites, but we didn't want to venture across the land without permission.

Gentleman's Cave

This was a cave reported by numerous sources to be within the boundary of the greyhound track, and situated behind the toilet block (hence the name). Unfortunately by studying the maps and aerial photos on the OSi mapviewer it's quite apparent that the area where the entrance was has since been covered over. It was one of the caves that lay in the line along the rear of the track grounds. I haven't been into the grounds to investigate further (in case access still exists somehow) but it does seem like the "120 m of active stream passage with well decorated high levels, sump at both ends" as reported in IS v15 is no longer accessible, at least by the original entrance.

24 February 2011

Present: TF

With a few minutes on my hands I decided to take a quick look around the south side of the greyhound track, accessible via an access road into a commercial estate. I had been here a few months previously with Lina, but the area was overgrown and it wasn't possible to access the fields beyond the rear boundary of the commercial estate, along which the streambed runs according to maps. This time however I found that some substantial clearing had taken place and the streambed was now easily accessible.

Getting past the now non-existent boundary I was greeted with a very grand rising in the form of a new culvert:

Scale isn't very obvious here, but it's a good 2.5 metres high and across. the water immediately gets deep inside (unknown depth) for a distance of 3 metres or so before the floor slopes upwards to easy crawling sized passage, man-made as far as I could see. The stream emerging from it was low flow at the time, and a surprisingly large valley extended south away from the culvert.

Walking downstream, I discovered that the water disappeared into the right-hand bank after only 20-30 metres:

Unnamed sink

The water appeared to sump just inside the entrance, but it would be possible to squeeze in to the right of the stream as the solid ceiling dips upwards here. Excavation would be worthwhile here to see if any passage could be gained, although it may turn out to be more of a diving prospect. I didn't have the gear or the time to have a go on this visit.

Meanwhile the valley continued downstream, completely dry from this point:

I didn't have time to see how far it ran, or to see if there were any other sites worth checking, but as the old maps labeled a number of caves along its path I'll definitely be back here at some point to investigate further.

T