Research visit to
Ireland August 2006
Following successful
funding of the
Networks of Metalliferous Mining Migration in the
Nineteenth Century Transatlantic World: the Cornish and Irish – a
Comparative Study
project by the British Academy in July 2006, Dr
Schwartz and Professor Davis travelled over to Ireland on a research trip
to gather necessary information. We flew from Bristol to Dublin and then
drove down to County Wicklow where we had arranged to meet Marie Merrigan,
a member of the Mining Heritage sub-group of the
Vale of Avoca Development Association (V.A.D.A.). The Avoca mines,
producers of large amounts of copper and sulphur, had the longest
continuous production and a total value output that dwarfed any other mine
in Ireland. In 1982 however the mines closed and today the remains of
seven engine houses, a mineral tramway arch and a colourful mine landscape
containing precipitation ponds and spoilheaps from the different eras,
remain.
V.A.D.A.
prioritised the consolidation of mine buildings, including the chimney
stack at Williams' Engine House on the Tigroney Mine. The engine was
manufactured at the Perran Foundry, Perranarworthal, Cornwall, which was
owned by the Williams' of Scorrier who also operated the Tigroney Mine,
employing Cornish labour and techniques. The consolidation process is part
of a larger project whose aim it is to develop a themed Mine Heritage Park
at Avoca. This project will help to preserve an area of unique industrial
heritage while at the same time creating a valuable tourist attraction for
the area and providing a facility for leisure pursuits.
Sharron had worked with Marie on
migration-related themes closely back in the late 1990s on the Leader
assisted Celtic Copper Project involving Cornwall, Wicklow and Anglesey,
Wales. There was considerable Cornish involvement at Avoca, as evidenced by
the landscape with its Cornish-design engine houses and Methodist chapel.
Moreover, there appears to have been connections with the copper mines of
West Cork, one of our study areas, with people from Wicklow believed to
have moved there in the early nineteenth century.
Marie
kindly showed us around the mines situated on both sides of the Avoca
River and we then went to the derelict Church of Ireland where several
Cornish headstones are known to exist. The graveyard is so badly overgrown
that it was near impossible to read any of the inscriptions but there are
plans to clear the invasive vegetation in the near future. Under the aegis
of the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, with
partners the Geological Survey of Ireland and the Mining Heritage Trust of
Ireland, Avoca has just gained INTERREG money to run a project aimed at
cleaning up the Avoca River that suffers from acid mine drainage water. A
project manager has recently been appointed and this will hopefully serve
as a catalyst for further heritage related projects. Marie promised
to help as much as possible with our migration project and has already
provided lists of Cornish interred in the Church of Ireland's
graveyard.
The
following day we set off to make the long journey across southern Ireland
to Allihies in West Cork.
Allihies (Na
hAilichí, formerly known as Cluin) is situated above
Ballydonegan Bay on the western end of the Beara Peninsula between Cod's
Head and Dursey Head in the west of County Cork. The nearest town is
Castletown Bearhaven (about 40km).
Allihies contains some
of the most stunning remains of Ireland’s metalliferous mining heritage
and has significant Cornish connections, being the site of one of the
earliest Cornish communities to develop outside of the British mainland.
Following substantial financial support from the Heritage Council and
other agencies in 2000, the Mining Heritage Trust of Ireland (MHTI)
entered into a partnership with shareholders of Cloan townland, to
conserve the Cornish-design man engine house at the Mountain Mine.
Constructed in 1862 it is the most intact, surviving example of a purpose
built Cornish-design man engine house anywhere in the world, and that
despite its very exposed position and lack of maintenance since the mine
closed in 1882. Phase one of a three-stage conservation programme was
completed in late 2002, with phase two and three undertaken in 2003.
The
former Protestant Chapel in Allihies village,
built for the Cornish
miners who came
to work
in the mines,
has been imaginatively renovated by the Allihies Co- Op Committee with
generous grants
from the Millennium
Committee, the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism through the Access
Funds Scheme, and Cork County Council. This will house the Allihies Copper
Mine Museum. The adjoining cemetery contains one or two Cornish memorials.
The history of the Berehaven (or Bearhaven) mines is inextricably bound to
the Puxley family, of English origin but with Galway connections. John
Lavallin Puxley (1772-1856) formed the Allihies Mining Company on the cost
book system in 1812. The first Mine Captain was a Cornishman, Edward
Nettle, and he commenced work at Dooneen, where a quartz vein showing the
telltale green signs of secondary copper staining extends into the sea and
may still be seen today. In 1813, another mine, the Mountain (or North)
Mine, was started which appeared at first to have been worked as an open
cast mine. A succession of Cornish mine captains and a small number of
mineworkers occupying skilled positions were present throughout the
nineteenth century at the Mountain Mine, and those of the neighbouring
setts of Doneen, Caminches,
Keologue
and Coom. The majority of the Irish miners would have been
Gaelic-speaking at
this time and therefore the English-speaking Cornish
formed a small, discrete community accommodated in a purpose built village
which was far superior to the mud huts inhabited by the Irish miners which
caused some resentment. A Protestant Chapel was erected for their use in
the village of Allihies in 1845.
During
the famine, the numbers of people in Allihies did not fall: in fact the
census returns show clearly that the population rose. Moreover, no one
died of starvation there as corn was brought in by the mining company to
feed the workforce. However, there was also a significant migration of
Irish to Cornwall, particularly the mining town and district of Camborne
from the 1850s, a hitherto largely under-researched theme. It will be
interesting to discover whether any of these were from West Cork.
John Lavallin Puxley
died in 1856 and the mines passed to his grandson, John Simon Lavallin
Puxley, who appeared not to have had any interest in the mines he had
inherited. Following his death in 1860, the mine passed his brother, Henry
Lavillin Puxley. Production at the mine reached an all time high in 1863
when 8,358 tons of copper ore was sold. However, discontent by the
workforce over varying work practices at the different mines (which
included resentment of the Cornish who commanded higher wages and more
favourable working conditions) culminated in a series of strikes in the
1860s. Coupled with the need for ever deepening shafts that unfortunately
combined with declining copper prices (following the collapse of financial
giants, Overend and Gurney in 1866) made the mines less profitable and
prompted Puxley to sell the mines in 1868 to the Mining Company of
Ireland. The mines changed hands that year amid a scandal to the Berehaven
Mining Co. Ltd. which re-opened Doneen Mine, developed Coom Mine, opened a
new mine named Tragh na Mban near Kealogue Mine and continued operations
at Mountain Mine. But the mines continued to lose money despite
cost-saving measures such as dispensing with steam power in favour of
water power, and constant calls were made on the shareholders. The mines
closed in 1884 prompting a large emigration of both the Cornish and Irish
miners from the area to mines overseas, particularly those of Butte
Montana, USA. Sporadic
activity at the mines in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries was
undertaken by the Allihies Copper Mines Ltd (1917-1926) The British
Non-Ferrous Metal Corporation (1928-1930), and the Canadian-owned Emerald
Island Mining Company (1956-1962), but all these ventures were financial
failures.
The
Berehaven Mines were modern enterprises as well-equipped and mechanised as
any in nineteenth-century Cornwall and several steam engines were imported
from the foundries of Cornwall and Wales. A 36-inch cylinder engine,
manufactured by Harvey and Co, Hayle was erected at Dooneen Mine in 1823.
There were another three on the Keologue mine sett on which the remains of
one that accommodated a 52-inch engine can be viewed, and a further two at
Caminches Mine (a 36-inch pumping engine procured from Ross Island Mine in
1829 and an 18-inch winding engine manufactured by Neath Abbey), neither
of which have survived. Three were erected on the Mountain Mine (a 30-inch
stamping engine manufactured at Neath Abbey Iron Co. in 1831) a 30-inch
pumping engine also manufactured by Neath Abbey which has collapsed into
its shaft, and rotative beam engine erected in 1862 with a cylinder of 32
or 36-inches which served a dual purpose: as a winding engine as well as a
man engine, the house of which has been recently consolidated. Another
28-inch cylinder steam engine was erected at Coom, the engine house of
which is well-preserved.
This
was Sharron's third visit to Allihies in the last 12 months and Graham's
first. The beauty of the place is matched by the warmth and friendliness
of the local people. Sharron introduced Graham to her friends Theo Dalkhe
and Charlie Tyrrell, members of the Allihies Co-Op Committee. This local
voluntary group has been working extremely hard on opening a museum in the
former Methodist chapel and had been encouraged and aided in this by
numerous individuals from Cornwall and close links have been forged
between the two mining areas. We were shown around the museum and Theo and
Charlie explained their innovative interpretation plans and use of space
within the building. This will include an IT area where Graham and Sharron
hope that people will be able to make use of the research material the
Cornish-Irish mining migration project will generate.
After
lunching in O'Neill's pub (which in Sharron's estimation serves the best
chowder in the world), Theo kindly took us on a tour of the Mountain Mine.
Sharron took the opportunity of going down into one of the gunnises
(workings open to surface) with Theo to see the incredible secondary
copper mineralization (malachite and azurite). The views over
Ballydonegan Bay are breathtaking from the mine site and the beach,
largely man-made from the quartz debris washed down stream from the mine's
crushing operations, could be clearly seen.
The
following day we met at Theo's house to inspect the Allihies Cost Books,
from which we planned to extract a cohort of names. Historian and member
of the Beara Historical Society, Connie
Murphy, met us there and we had a fascinating conversation with him about
the mines and the history of the area.
The cost book system of mining was
a traditional and simple accounting system used in Cornish mines and
regulated by the stannary laws of Cornwall. Everything relating to the
accounting in the mine appeared in the cost book. The books contain the
names of some of the miners from Allihies and also other people involved
in the operation of the mines, including female workers. The proliferation
of names such as Harrington and O' Sullivan will make it challenging to
say the least to trace these people, but in this we have been offered the
help of Connie Murphy who is an expert on Irish surnames and very
interested in the migration of people from Allihies to Butte Montana.
Later that day Theo took us to the
Dooneen Mine where he and
Sharron climbed down the cliff face with the aid of ropes to access a
beach level adit (mine drainage tunnel). It was on this beach that Theo
found the iron heads of two Cornish stamps (used to crush the mineralised
rock to liberate the copper) and which will be displayed in the museum.
This mine was the first to be worked in the area and folklore has it that
it was either a contingent of miners from Wicklow or a group of Cornish
militiamen who discovered the tell tale green copper staining from an
outcrop in the cliff face in the early C19th.
That
evening we were invited to attend the Co-Op's meeting where we formally
presented our research project to the committee and thanked them for their
support and hospitality. We expressed our hopes that we would be able to
provide new and interesting information arising from our research that
would be of use to the museum and people of Allihies. Sharron then made a
presentation of the Cornish Mining Landscape World Heritage Site Nomination Document
to Chairman, Charlie Tyrrell, as an acquisition for the library that is to
be housed in the museum. This gift further underlies the close
relationship between Cornwall and Allihies.
The
following day we laboriously digitally photographed one of the cost books
and placed this onto DVD. This we will use to extract our cohort. After
this we bid farewell to Theo and West Cork and made our way over to the
County Waterford where Sharron had arranged to stay with mining historian
and editor of the Mining Heritage Trust of Ireland Journal,
Des Cowman, at Annestown.
Des is widely published, a veritable 'mine' of information on all aspects of Irish mining
history, and is particularly interested in the migration of miners from
Waterford and elsewhere. En
route, Sharron stopped to photograph the Tankardstown Cornish-design
engine houses perched above the panoramic coastline of Ireland's 'Copper
Coast'.
The Tankardstown mining complex lies in the Copper Coast European and
Global Geopark. Considerable progress with consolidation and
interpretation of extant mining remains has been made possible through
INTERREG 3B NW Europe funding which is due to finish at the end of 2006.
The
Tankardstown site contains the substantial remains of two Cornish-design
engine houses, one for pumping, one for winding, and a chimney stack. At
Bunmahon, the Church of Ireland, no longer used but extant, has a
graveyard containing some Cornish memorials.
Several
fascinating conversations concerning migration and useful sources ensued
with Des who offered to make available his considerable database on
migrants from Waterford. This will be very useful, as judging by the
surnames, some of the miners were from West Cork. The following day Des
took us to the Copper Coast Geopark HQ where we met geologist, Sophie
Préteseille. Sophie was particularly interested in the potential of our
project to contribute to heritage tourism, noting that people from the US
and Australia have visited Tankardstown looking for their roots in recent
years. She and Des suggested some Irish records in Waterford that will be
useful to our project. We headed back to Dublin later that day and
returned to Bristol the following morning after a very useful and
worthwhile research trip.
For
more information on the places and projects outlined above, see the
Allihies
Museum and the
Copper Coast Geopark
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