Post date: Jun 1, 2011 10:06:40 AM

Cavers: Gaelan, Petie

Time: 4 Hours

Last summer I was trawling through old Irish Speleologys and spotted a short reference to Rooska Cave. Donal Gilhuys told of a short cave with 125-150m of small passage that had been explored and surveyed by the TSA who had regrettably lost the survey data in the post. There was no indication of where the cave was so after trawling over OS maps I finally found Rooska Townland and the Rock of Rooska, which seemed like a good place to find the cave. Some time later that summer I went and visited the Roaring Wells with Peter Sr. We took a short detour to Rooska Rock. I spent 15 minutes battling unmentionably thick brambles and loose scree slopes before emerging from the copse defeated, discovering Dad standing at the entrance to a cave he'd found 14 minutes previously. My Dad could vaguely remember going into some small cave in Tipperary with the TSA lads some 35 years previously, the statement followed by a period of hazy squinting into the middle distance. I asked my uncle Pa, another old caver, if he knew much about the cave. He also remembered going into a small cave in Tipperary with the TSA lads, following that statement with an anecdote about Martyn Farr diving in Roaring Wells, following that with a period of hazy squinting into the middle distance. I was then quite delighted to find that Gaelan was interested in doing some caving down my way. I decided to see Rooska for myself.

My interest in Rooska lies in its position in relation to the Roaring Wells. The Roaring Wells is a large and picturesque rising in the banks of the River Suir. It was dived by The Farr, Dave Morris and R.J. Palmer in the late seventies. The rising is fed by two sinks. The Thonogue River Sink is the closest, only 1km away and feeds the Thonogue Inlet. Tincurry Sink is over 5km to the NW and some 40m higher. If you connect a line between Tincurry Sink and the end of Serendipity Passage in Roaring Wells then Rooska Cave comes within 200m of that line. There is then the possibility that you can intersect the (relatively large) streamway between the two points, either in a streamway or in a sump.

A slightly groggy Gaelan rolled into Fermoy at 12 on Sunday morning, having spent the weekend with The Wan in Cork. We motored up as far as Cahir and negotiated the twisty back roads till we eventually got to Rooska. A trip to the Rooska Farm to find the landowner found he was out so we went down the road and found a changing spot. By half two we were at the mouth of the cave where a drain discharged water into the cave. I wriggled in first, meeting a foxes nest after 4m. Mr. Fox was out for Sunday lunch so I bore sharply right into a wee rocky chamber and another sharp left up a tightish passage led into a spacious moonmilk encrusted chamber. Here we found a pair of inscriptions - T.S.A. and T.S., the writer of the latter presumably having forgotten what came after the S. From here a fine stooping/walking passage led onwards meeting a dry streambed and becoming increasingly muddy. We followed the streambed on, past a number of side passages till a final rift ended in a low squeeze with the passage continuing on at the far side. I reckoned the best thing to do would be to survey out and get the tools to dig out the bottom so we got the kit out and began the survey.

I was planning to do this to grade 3 with a diving compass and tape, by estimating the vertical distance between the legs but this would have been a waste of time since virtually all of the legs were horizontal. After three legs the passage met a cross rift, where Gaelan insisted on taking a leg up the larger rift despite my protestations that it wasn't worth bothering with. The quick leg became two, then required a long third and then a fourth reaching a pool of water. The pool of water was a godsend, allowing me to clean off the survey book, the thick claggy mud becoming increasingly bothersome. The passage continued flat out onwards past squeezes, junctions and mini-mazes till after many legs of somewhat dubious accuracy we arrived back at the main passage, a mere 4m from where we had begun our side leg. Gaelan again insisted on taking a leg down a short passage further back which I had pronounced to be a blind alcove. Again Gaelan was right and the tight passage went for four more legs to a squeeze where ancient man had tried to dig a way through into the continuing passage. I had a go at it but it was fairly tight and I backed off for fear of getting stuck - the mud meant that reverse traction was hard to come by. It also doesn't help that the mud makes your oversuit stick to the walls and the floor and you end up sliding around inside it and not really going anywhere. The squeeze drafts and is worth hammering. Gaelan and I went our separate ways at the junction, I to clean the compass and notepad, Gaelan to answer the call of nature.

Back at the pool I had a poke about with my feet, finding it to be a sump with an underwater continuation. We met again and continued surveying back the entrance, Gaelan taking numerous diversions up short side passages. Six o clock rolled round and coming increasingly close to our callout time the last 8 legs were made at breakneck speed. One leg was sighted by Gaelan in an awkward position, causing moans and groans the like of which only Maeve should hear. The survey book was so muddy at the end that I was writing into the mud not knowing if I was writing over something else or not. Finally we emerged onto the nettle bed at the entrance and were treated to glorious views of the Knockmealdown Mountains. The Vale of Tipperary sure is a pretty place. Gaelan went off to his car to cancel the callout and change while I went off down the road to the river to wash off. Once at the river I couldn't resist a look at the Thonogue sinks. In normal conditions these take half to two thirds of the Thonogue River water. The water was quite low so there wasn't much water sinking into the boulders at the cliff face. Water could be heard falling and rushing through boulders behind the sink, a decent dig here may be worth a try. The ISA got 10m into the boulders once. A bit further down the river I found a second sink, thoroughly clogged with mud and boulders but with more sounds of rushing water deep down.

I headed back to the bridge to clean off. Gaelan had caught up and while changing out of my gear someone pulled up.

"Is it deep enough for ye?"

"Erm..."

"The water. Did ye have a good swim?"

It was Pat Walsh, brother of Mick Walsh, the Rooska Cave landowner. We explained that we weren't out to swim in a shin deep stream but that we had been caving in the cave on his brother's land. Pat told us "the old people used to say that you could go in there into the cave and come out at Cahir Castle. Sher that couldnt be true.... could it?" He was most bemused with our strange pastime and very interested in what sort of pleasure we derived from it all. A very nice lad. After this we retired to the Roma Cafe in Cahir for post-caving nourishment before I got the bus home and spent the night drawing up the Guinness-fueled survey before I could forget what my confusing and arcane notes meant.

The cave is short but quite fun and warm. It's all old phreatic passage with some nicely sculpted rock in places, mazes and numerous pendants, rather like Cloyne Cave - that fantastic place. It's still going in three places - the first squeeze met, the sump and at the drafting squeeze. Unfortunately we didn't have time to push these properly. The dream of the Roaring Wells streamway is still alive.

The survey was an attempt at doing a high-speed Grade 3 survey, following an article in the BCRA Compass Points magazine. We did survey it quite quickly, covering the lot in 3.5 hours in less than ideal conditions. In the end we can confidently claim Grade 3, given we were attempting to take measurements to Grade 5 standards. With a bit of tweaking I'm sure that a system of making reasonably accurate surveys of short systems at speed, even with gradients, is possible. We surveyed 124.3m of passage and there's 20m of unsurveyed side passage.

Petie

Post Scriptum -

The Compass Points article can be found here, it's in issue 39