Post date: May 21, 2019 1:11:59 PM

Al, Steve Muh, Jock, ~6hours

The ‘newest’ cave in Leitrim is to be found in a large hole in a hill off a very sleepy, scenic back road in a little frequented area of limestone country close to the summit of Dough mountain overlooking Mannorhamilton. It has been rumoured that this cave has been eluding several folks in the Shannon group for well over a year now.. so happy to report that enough bolts, rope and balls were assembled for a more thorough probing session on Sunday. Poll-Dough was first located by Al, Magda and Jim over the course of the symposium weekend in the nearby Garrison borderlands back in November 2017. A certain member of the local caving press was contacted to inquire as to whether there were any known records of the place amongst the annuals of Leitrim caving, promoting a pre-emptive expose in Descent with references to ongoing gardening works and potential for something big lurking below. Our reporter had also suggested that the cave in question may have been visited by Pete Lord of SUSS and Billy Shields and Gareth Li Jones of the Reyfad group back in the 70s. If we are in the same place as our predecessors the cave seems to have grown slightly over the past 30-40 odd years since this earlier possible reference.

Anyway, this potential ‘glory’ hole has had me very excited ever since contemplating early retirement from caving after the Garrison symposium. I think Al may have let me in on the discovery by way of compensation for the stress of trying to help organise a SUIRCO in the middle of a house move, either that or the fact that we were literally down to the last 2 or 3 old Shannon hands based in the north at that time. I met with Al, Magda and Jim for my first visit a few weekends after the Garrison SUICRO. A very impressive, picturesque surface shake hole had been rigged for about 20 meters down through some steep’ish vegetation to an impressive necklace of mobile hanging death scree that appeared to be funnelling into a tantalising 2x2 meter hole of more solid looking rock at the head of an abyss. Lots of gardening was required on this first trip so progress was fairly slow and tentative from Al’s initial back up spits across the first half of the scree slope to a natural thread in a dripping roof along the left-hand side of the death necklace. Al was able to place another spit in the roof next to this natural thread to form a Y hang but progress was slowed by the high volume of spry, drips and mobile boulders. Many rocks were satisfyingly kicked and thrown into the abyss below but a lifetime could be spent gardening the pitch head and there would still be more to go.

Further exploration ended up going on a bit of a hiatus for most of 2018 due to weddings, job changes and house moves.. but myself and Al returned for another visit on a very wet day in Autumn 2018, where it was my turn on point and gardening duty across the rest of the scree pile to reach the pitch head proper. After a considerable amount of faffing, I managed to make some tentative progress across the rest of the scree slope of death to an alcove at the head of the impressive looking launch point in good solid limestone above the abyss. From here it was possible to see a small arch/window ledge running back under the worst of the scree pile and wider shake hole above us to what appeared to be an impressive looking parallel shaft with the sound of boulder dropping 20,30, 40.. 80 metres below.. think the pitch got deeper the more I thought about it. After much faffing attempting to place a couple (1 and a half) decent backup spits to protect the next traverse above the main void to the intimidating looking launch off point we called it a day as it was getting a little too wet and miserable for any further progress.

Exploration was put on the back burner for the rest of the winter with plans to return during some drier weather in spring. We decided that concrete screws might be the order of the day to help speed up any further exploratory rigging and progress at the main pitch head. Another Steve was mustered.. and so it was that the 3 of us found ourselves gingerly traversing across the mobile scree pile one by one on much more agreeable and bright and dry Sunday in May. Steve Muh took up the baton from my last spit and a half and headed out across the main pitch head placing 2 good concrete screws on an airy exposed traverse before getting a third screw in to form a Y hang for lift off down to the arch/window ledge about 10meters below at the head of the parallel shaft. Steve quickly placed another Y hang on the window ledge and descended past a natural deviation on the opposite wall before reaching the bottom. Al followed and I came down last after an aerobic session on Steve’s rigging. Definitely the sort the of place to contemplate life and concentrate on your rope work. The safest option definitely seemed to be to drop this parallel shaft beyond the window ledge as this was well out of the line of fire from the hanging death pile of choss above our heads.

Excitedly we gathered ourselves at the bottom of the pitches and headed over a pile of boulders below the main daylight shaft and off through a small void into the passage beyond. Unfortunately, the hoped-for kilometres of stream bashing failed to materialise on this visit. A small void beyond the daylight, shaft opened up into a wide, loose boulder pile and a finely decorate 5-10'ish meter chamber with some nice stal and formations. We probed every corner of the chamber in the hope of finding a way on. I stripped out of my SRT kit and started some frenzied digging on past a low series of flowstone into a flat out low muddy squeeze that appeared to be our best prospect while Steve and Al surveyed back out from the chamber to the bottom of the main shafts. After much rock bashing and mud scooping I was able to push for another couple of body lengths into a small tight chamber where it looked like further tight passage may continue under a low roof to the right but there wasn’t much of a discernable draft here and prospects don't look massively promising, although it was easy digging and another couple of hours work here should definitively confirm whether this is worth pushing further. Back out in the boulder chamber, we spent a bit more time admiring some dolphin bones and probing gaps in the floor at our feet. Most of the floor felt like it could be suspiciously suspended and several smaller boulders dropped amongst the voids at our feet could be heard to rattle for another meter or so. More work shifting boulders in this floor would definitely seem to be the way to go but we were running short of time and didn’t have enough tools for a longer digging session so Steve and Al headed back up the shaft surveying as they went and I came up behind de-rigging.

All in all an extremely impressive ~50 odd meter deep photogenic (Yorkshire-esq) pothole, with 30 odd meters of rigging from the head of the main pitch, about 10 meters of traversing across the teetering pile of scree, followed by another 15-20 meters of easy going up through the hanging garden to the surface. Definitely worth another visit or two with a photographer and a good crowbar session in the floor of the small chamber. However unfortunately like many of our discoveries in Leitrim probably not a very suitable cave for the masses given the extent and unstable nature of the scree slope at the head of the main pitch.

More work surface prospecting in the area is planned and may yet reveal the several kilometres of stomping stream passing that we had been hoping for :P