Europe > Ireland > Southwest (Kerry & Cork) > Killarney > Articles > On the trail of the Killarney copper mines

The placid waters of Lough Leane and the quiet isolation of Ross Island, Killarney, seem far removed from the bustle of an industrial cauldron. Yet over several periods during the past 4000 years, the background hum of engines, the staccato crack of hammers and the sudden boom of explosions have shattered this tranquility. At such times, as many as five hundred men, from as far away as Wicklow, Wales and Cornwall fought the rock and the water to extract valuable minerals from the ground. Ross Island hides the site of the earliest known Bronze Age copper mine in western Europe.

The mountains to the south and west of Killarney are built of sandstone sediments laid down in the seas that covered the area between 395 and 345 million years ago. During the Carboniferous period of the next fifty million years, the skeletons and shells of creatures of the coral reefs slowly grew into the limestone deposits that now form the land around Lough Leane.

Some 295 million years ago, the collisions of the land masses that forced the rise of the mountains of central Europe opened cracks in the limestone, which filled with hot waters from the deep crust. These contained dissolved salts of copper, lead, zinc and traces of silver and cobalt, which crystallised out, on cooling, to form the rich mineral veins that would later be mined for their wealth.

The first copper objects came to Ireland around 2500 BC, as the Stone Age was giving way to the Age of Bronze. At various times over the next 1500 years, malachite rock was mined at sites around Lough Leane, including Ross Island, Crow Island and the Muckross peninsula, and reduced to copper using charcoal from the surrounding woods.

Though mining on a modern industrial scale began in the eighteenth century, the high point came between 1804 and 1828, when nearly 5000 tonnes of copper ore were extracted and shipped from Tralee to Wales, where it was smelted to the metal. Flooding of the mines was always a problem, and eventually forced their closure. An unsuccessful attempt was made to re-open the mines in 1911, but this was soon abandoned, and since then the shafts have disappeared under thickening layers of vegetation.

In 2004, a walking trail was opened on Ross Island, which takes the visitor past many of the sites of the old copper mines. The trail begins and ends at the Ross Castle car park and at 2.75 km, or less than three miles, it is quite leisurely. As well as providing a fascinating insight into a little known aspect of Irish history, it gives stunning views across the lake toward Mangerton, Torc, Shehy and Tomies mountains, which rise steeply from the far shore.

The early part of the trail passes through woodland of an almost primordial gloom. On either side are swamps, overgrown with dense patches of alder, rhododendron, holly and ivy-covered birch. In early summer, bluebells and herb Robert carpet the drier ground, while the air is heavy with the scent of wild garlic. Fungi, wood sorrel and thick moss colonise the stumps of fallen trees, through which deer pick their way.

After a short distance, one comes to crags of bedded limestone, tilted and twisted by ancient earth movements. Trees cling tenaciously, if improbably to cracks in the rock faces and curtains of ivy hang to the ground.

Just beyond a junction in the trail, it is worth making a detour past tall trees that creak in the wind, and onto the beach. Here, amid pebbles striped with quartz are many that are stained a vivid green by the malachite the miners came to harvest. The boulders lining the shore are rounded and pitted into grotesque shapes by the lake waters. Toward the centre of the lake are shrub-covered islets, their bases also eroded, and a string of surreal rocky stumps, known as the hen and chickens, provide perches for cormorants.

At the western end of the beach, the path is re-joined at the site of an open cast mine known, for obvious reasons, as the Blue Hole. Here, the water that now fills the quarry is stained turquoise by the copper salts that have leached out of the rocks.

Copper is quite toxic to most life forms, and similar pools elsewhere are usually devoid of vegetation. In the Blue Hole, small patches of copper-tolerant weeds have gained a foothold, while around the edges, flowers such as sea campion and sea pinks, which are able to thrive on the poisoned soils, have filled the biological niche.

Across the track from the Blue Hole is the Coffer Dam, an artificial pool into which the water that threatened to flood the mine was continually pumped. Near this are the shafts of the principal excavations of the nineteenth century. Several of these were sunk to a depth of fifteen metres, and some are clearly visible, their openings only lightly covered by the woodland vegetation. The remains of pump houses and maintenance buildings can also be seen jutting through the undergrowth.

The earliest known copper mine in Western Europe is situated at the end of a short detour from the main trail. This consists of a low-roofed cave, and was discovered during operations in the mid-eighteenth century. Numerous stone tools were found, as well as evidence of smelting. Archeological investigations, which began in 1992 have dated this mine to between 2300 and 2100 BC.

Though these prehistoric workings mark the end of the mines, the trail continues through dense woodland. Amid patches of yew, birch and oak are scattered examples of introduced species, such as Monterey Pines and Red Cedars from the western coast of North America, and Portugal Laurel from Iberia.

An extension of the trail leads through oak woods and a short uphill stretch to a superb viewpoint, known as Governor’s Rock. This promontory, crowned with oak and yew, stands high above the water and looks directly across the lake toward the mountains of the western shore. This view alone would justify the walk, even without the history.

The main trail now turns back to Ross Castle, passing through a beech wood, before crossing the earlier part of the walk. A large, erratic sandstone boulder at the track side was carried here from the south by a glacier during the last Ice Age. It has stood here, acquiring a camouflage of moss, lichens and ivy, for 12 000 years, an alien on the local limestone.

As the trail approaches the shore once again, it opens a view over the lake to Crow Island. Despite its small size, this was the site of another copper mine that yielded more than eighty tonnes of ore between 1811 and 1813.

On its final leg, the trail passes the ruins of Ross Cottage. Now a roofless shell, with trees growing from the rooms, this is thought to have been used, for a short time, by the poet, Shelley. He may even have written part of his poem, ‘Queen Mab’ here, though the evidence for this, and for his sojourn in the cottage, is not clear.

The Killarney Mining Trail is not strenuous. Only the avoidable extension to Governor’s Rock is uphill. Taken at a leisurely pace, the whole can be followed in under two hours. Yet it is packed with detail. Even on a poor day, much of it is sheltered by trees from wind and rain. If the weather is fine, then the visitor would wish to spend longer here, for the views across Lough Leane are unparalleled.

Irish Tourist Board Approved Guide, Richard Clancy, leads half-day and full-day walks, starting at 11 am. He can be found at www.killarneyguidedwalks.com

Articles

• More from Anthony Toole