Teampall Shetric, 06 August 2022

Team: Luca, Rob and the ghost of Stephen Frawley

Time: 3 hours

Aim: To rediscover the ‘forgotten’ Rufus Chamber – the largest chamber in TS

Teampall Shetric is a personal favourite of mine and it was here, in October 2015, that myself and Frawley paid a visit to take a few photos of SG’s recently re-explored and re-surveyed cave. While window-shopping around the main chamber we followed a tight crawl where, to my complete surprise we ended up climbing up into a very large chamber. While it did appear to have light footprints, nobody seemed aware of it. Some years later, I tried relocate it but did not have sufficient time. Over time my memory assumed it to be located close to Heaney Hall and I had begun to doubt its existence. It was only for the fact that I’d taken a photo of it, back in 2015, that kept it in my mind.

So along comes the year of 2022 and myself and Luca (an Italian man of great renown – both respected and feared by those who lie on the conservative side of national bolting policies) head to Teampall as the latter was keen to see a Leitrim cave. Turns out Teampall – now also one of his firm Irish favourites – reminded him of the caves of his native Bologna. Take note, this is perhaps the only part of Leitrim which shares a landscape similar to that of Italy!

After exhausting all the nooks and crannies of the northern Dry Series all the way to the start of the Shannon Series and not finding the chamber, my memory awakened and I suddenly recalled its location! We returned to the Waterfall Chamber and headed directly south via a tight boulder choke and there we found it – me being reunited with a long lost memory and Luca finding himself initiated into the SG by joining in on the survey effort.

From the south of Waterfall Chamber, almost directly in line with the Dry Way Passage is a small passageway about 6 meters long. There are a number of openings in the floor which don’t appear to lead anywhere. However, keeping high, a tight space is negotiable by crawling. Passing through this low crawl, which is initially horizontally spacious, one then approaches a tight boulder choke. There are a few possible side passages which might merit a better look but they do not appear to go anywhere. Crawling further south and upwards through the boulder choke, one suddenly finds enough space to stand up, finding oneself in the northeastern most corner of ‘Rufus’ Chamber. This large chamber is approximately 18m x 14m in size. It features and exceptionally flat roof, approx. 4m high. In the eastern end of the chamber, however, the roof has severely collapsed in large blocks, which are likely the source of the entrance boulder choke. Where the roof has collapsed the height of the chamber doubles to 8m height. The line of this roof collapse is exceptionally straight and might represent north-south fault. The chamber was explored for any possible extension but it seems exhausted. The Rufus extension adds approximately 57m meters on to Leitrim’s longest cave and represents the largest chamber in the cave.

The chamber was named after my dog, who had died some months previous to the 2015 discovery. However ‘rufus’ is a Latin noun signifying ‘red’ and aside from the orangey-reddish-brown mud around this chamber thare are a collection of nice red-stained calcite flows in the south east side of the chamber.’

-Rob

Photo of Stephen Frawley in the Rufus Chamber October 2015