A Tunnel at the Marina, Cork City

About two weeks ago I stumbled across a small tunnel near the old slipway by Dundanion Castle, roughly 1o meters in length it looks like it is being recently used as an illegal dumping spot. I checked Ordinance Survey Ireland site to see what this small tunnel was identified as, according to their Historical Map this was marked as ‘Cave’. My guess it was some sort of cellar.

Link to OSI: http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V1,571173,571820,7,9

Link to OSI:
http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V1,571173,571820,7,9

Two weeks later I returned to the site with a better camera.

Concealed Entrance

Concealed Entrance

Entrance from the outside

Entrance from the outside

Entrance. Seems like a popular dumping ground

Entrance. Looks like it turned into an illegal dumping ground

End of the tunnel. There is a small portion of space at the archway, barely a foot deep

End of the tunnel. There is a small portion of space at the archway, barely a foot deep

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"Backstreet Boys Suck" it says

“Backstreet Boys Suck” it says

Looks like some blood on the wall

Looks like some blood on the wall

The tunnel also was a habitat for the Meta Menardi, aka Cave Spider. There were plenty of these crawling along the ceiling. They’re an unpleasant sight but apparently pose no threat.

Meta Menardi or Cave Spider. Ugly but harmless.

Meta Menardi or Cave Spider. Ugly but harmless.

Meta Menardi or Cave Spider egg sack

Meta Menardi or Cave Spider egg sack

Meta Menardi or Cave Spider. Ugly but harmless.

Meta Menardi or Cave Spider. Ugly but harmless.

Meta Menardi or Cave Spider.Ugly but harmless.

Meta Menardi or Cave Spider.Ugly but harmless.

 

Posted in Activity, Caves, Cork, Cork City, Spelunking, Urbex | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Mount Gabriel – Mizen Peninsula, Co. Cork

Mount Gabriel not only provides a pretty great view of the peninsular but also features some mine shafts as well. We managed to find at least 3 mine shafts close in proximity to the road leading up to the mountain top, only one of which we couldn’t access. The remaining two mine shafts were quite small, tiny when compared to the copper mines in Allihies. The biggest of these two only went as far as, 30 meters before reaching a dead end.

According to mindat, Baryite was the main material being mined.

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Entrance to the first mine shaft

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Exiting the first mine shaft

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Exiting the second mine shaft

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Inside a chamber of the second mine shaft

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material in the second mine shaft

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Material from the second mine shaft. Is that Granite or limestone?

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Inside the chamber of the second mine shaft, this is roughly a 5 second exposure

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First mineshaft, water constantly dripping from the ceiling

The view from the top is pretty great.

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Schull

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Posted in Caves, Cork, Mine, Mountain, Mountain, Scenery, Spelunking, Urbex | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The Crow’s Nest – Minecraft

I’ve recently decided to give Minecraft mods a try after having abandoned the game for something like six months. Previously I’ve been put off installing them because of the awkward processes required. Some of the mods were dependent on other mods which were then dependent on other mods and so on, until you reach the final mod that wasn’t compatible with the version of Minecraft you’re running and so I just gave up.

Apparently the process has improved, albeit not by much. I would be inclined to write the exact instructions I took to install all the mods for these screenshots but there is a good chance it will be outdated in a matter of weeks. Instead I’ll just list the mods and setup I have:

  • Shader: SEUS v10.1 Preview 2 for Minecraft 1.7.2
  • Mod dependancy for shader: Forge 10.12.1.1101
  • Resource Pack: Chroma Hills 1.0.8 LATEST
  • Minecraft Client version: 1.7.2
  • OS: Windows 7

It may be awkward but it’s definitely well worth it, some of these mods are a stunning piece of work. Here I have started working on a project called The Crow’s Nest, you can download what I have so far from here.

 

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Fitzgerald’s Park got a new facelift

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Old Kenmare Road, Co. Kerry

We recently trekked a small part of the Old Kenmare road near Killarney, beautiful place to be in despite the bad weather we had for most of the day. Although we were soaked to the bone, we had a blast!

Posted in Activity, Climbing, Kerry, Mountain, Nature, Places | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Carrig House, Lower Glanmire Road, Cork City

I’ve seen this late Georgian house across The Marina on several occasions and was always curious as to see what was inside it. Unfortunately, a fire in 2002 had destroyed most of the interior. An attempt to renovate it had been made but only getting as far as building the new roof, the house has since been closed up with metal sheets installed on all entrances.

Recently, I noticed one of the sheets had been torn down and figured it would be a good opportunity to check it out before the sheet will be put back up again. While there was a shortage of furniture, we did find something interesting in the end …

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We found two old computers that looked like they were  from the 60’s. According to Fabice Blewitt’s comment below: “The computers belonged to the Old Radio school located in Carrig House. “

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Posted in Building, Cork City, Uncategorized, Urbex | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

The Ovens Cave, Cork

Here’s an interesting snippet from Charles Smith’s ‘The Ancient and Present State of the County and City of Cork’  published in 1774:

The Ovens or St Owens parish is washed on the S and E sides by the Bride and on the N by the Lee In it is a most remarkable cave beneath a stupendous limestone arch 1 2 foot high at the entrance but declines to less than 6 In some places it is higher and in others so low as one is obliged to creep in advancing through it The pas sage is on the W side but in about 20 yards the cave winds towards the S and SE Another way leads on due S to a well about fourscore yards from its entrance There are many other branches some running in a serpentine manner of others like so many alleys eroding each other mostly so broad that 6 or 8 persons may walk abreast the whole forming a perfect labyrinth under ground In order to visit these passages it would necessary to take the fame precaution as made Theseus use when he was obliged to fight the Minotaur in the Cretan labyrinth which Virgil thus elegantly describes.

Unfortunately there was no stupendous limestone arch to be seen, the old entrance to the limestone cave was largely filled and entrance to the land feature signs with trespass warnings. We did manage to find an entrance in the end though, it was a tight fit and we were doubtful that we would get very far, so it was a nice surprise when the chambers suddenly opened up before us about 2 meters in.

We went in basic gear such as headlights, waterproof boots, gloves, knee pads, flare and a camera.

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Friend poses in front of the camera

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Material on the ceiling reflects the flash from the camera, looks like gold but touching the stuff felt damp and spongy.

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Most sections of the cave only had a height of less than a meter, often forcing us to crawl on all fours. Kneepads were a must for the occasion.

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Larger chambers compared to other sections of the cave. Notice the makeshift rope on the left, this probably helped guide explorers back to the entrance as the cave system was quite labyrinthian.

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Another muddy corridor

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Corridors often broke into other corridors, we stayed in path where the makeshift rope was guiding us though.

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Following the makeshift rope. Every now again we would find burnt out tea lights beside it.

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We found a sleeping bag, some burn out tea lights and a small pile of rubbish in this dark corner. Did someone seriously consider living here?

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Directly above us was the N22. Each vehicle that drove passed above us made an ominous sounding hum.

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Dead end or a tight fit?

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Relaxing and enjoying the sounds of the N22 above us.

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Many of the corridors had shallow pools of water in them. We only came across one corridor that had water coming up to our waist level.

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Mini Stalactites, give them a few more years before they turn into something more impressive …

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Remember when a bag of Taytos was 17p?

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Any spellunkers looking for their black hoodie?

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Another pool of water

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A chamber that was apparently used as a Mass Rock during Penal Times. We couldn’t find anything to indicate it was used for this purpose though, there was plenty of rubble on the ground and graffiti on the wall.

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Mass Rock chamber with more light.

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To the exit!

After 2 hours of exploring we were well covered in mud, over that duration we actually didn’t get too far to know what the extent of the cave system which is said to extend all the way to Gillabbey in Cork City. Tired and bruised, we crawled back out to civilisation.

The Ballincollig Heritage site features a post about the cave which makes for a good  read: http://ballincollig.wordpress.com/caves/

The Clare Caving Club have some handful of photos on their flickr stream ( although it’s not labelled properly ) in this links:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/clarecavingclub/3592552241/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/clarecavingclub/3593356520/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/clarecavingclub/3592548887/in/photostream/

Posted in Activity, Caves, Cork, Nature, Spelunking, Urbex | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ballincollig Castle Above and Below

Located South West and a 10 minute walk from the Main Street, lies Ballincollig Castle. Built in the 14th Century, possibly earlier, much of the castle lies in ruin and the grounds completely overgrown with brambles but the piles of empty beer cans left lying around the tower doesn’t leave much for a pretty sight. The view from the top however is a lot better. I’m curious to see what the place would have looked like back in the day.

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Underneath the castle is the opening of a small cavern, sloping downwards to a small hole, if you manage to squeeze through the hole, it opens up to a small chamber mostly filled with mud and water. It’s possibly connected with the Ballincollig cave system, but were weren’t going to risk getting wet or possibly contracting Well’s Disease ( worth reading about if you ever fancy going inside a cave without proper equipment ).

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Posted in Tower, Uncategorized, Urbex | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Dove Hill Castle, Carrick-on-Suir, Co.Tipp

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Posted in Nature, Tipperary, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Exploring Goggin’s Hill Tunnel

Built in 1851 and closed in 1961, Goggin’s Hill Tunnel currently stands as the longest abandoned railway tunnel in the Republic of Ireland.

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Posted in Cork, Urbex | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments