Mine - copper

The National Monuments Service's description

On the S slope of Mount Gabriel, on a prominent S-facing rock scarp, c. 60-70 m E of the early 20th-century Skeagh barytes mine. On inspection in 1984 this isolated mine was revealed to contain a substantial infill deposit. It is one of 31 copper mines belonging to Mount Gabriel Prehistoric mining complex (CO139-026001-). It consisted in an inclined working driven 328° into a S-facing rock scarp. The interior was waterlogged with peat deposit (D 0.3m-1m), which was partially excavated. The working was accessible to a length of c. 3m, narrowing from the entrance (Wth 3m; H 1.3m) to the backwall inside (Wth 1.2m; H 1m). Outside the entrance, a narrow path formed by broken slabs and spoil led up to the W side of the working in a similar fashion to that outside mine 25 (CO139-026007-). A small eroded spoil dump was exposed on level ground 3-4m below the mine entrance. To the W of this dump were a number of overlying rock slabs, two of which had a continuous groove (L 0.12m; Wth 0.01m) made by a metal blade at some unknown date. Stone maul fragments were recovered from the surface of the dump and the mine entrance, which may have been gathered from a small stream flowing in a S-E direction below the mine. (O'Brien 1987 and 1994, 345 and 348-9: mine 26).

This is a National Monument in State Care.

The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Cork. Volume 1: West Cork' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1992) and William O’Brien’s monograph ‘Mount Gabriel, Bronze Age mining in Ireland’ (Galway: Galway University Press, 1994).

Photograph attached
CO139-026002-_01: Interior of the mine (in O'Brien 1994, 348).

Date of upload/revision: 14 January 2009

References

O'Brien, W. 1994 Mount Gabriel: Bronze Age mining in Ireland. Galway University Press.

O'Brien, W. 1987 Primitive copper mining in south-west Ireland, 3 vols. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis. University College, Cork.