IONTOABH OIDHREACHT NA MIANADÓIREACHTA

Glendasan Mines, Co. Wicklow (OS 099981)

From Van Dieman's Mine, turn due north for a trek of about two miles over boggy land to the mountain top, which brings you over into Glendasan Valley (also known as the Wicklow Gap). From this point, it is possible to look down onto the mine workings in the valley. It is possible to intersect a path which leads over the mountain to the top of an old miners' path. This can be followed down past various workings with two shafts and two open wet adits which were not explored. The path turns into what appears to be a tramway and starts to flatten out, at which point there is an old iron stamp head lying on the ground. The tramway continues around the valley to some well-preserved cobbled dressing floors, where buddles, waterwheel pits and building foundations point to the Cornish influence at these mines.

There are lots of open adits in this area and many are worth investigation. In the area below the dressing floor, amongst the undergrowth, at least two wet adits can be located. One of these has a surface stream entering from the roof where it has broken through and there is a large windlass over a shaft. The more obvious spoil tips on the opposite side of the valley lead to a collapsed adit.

This is a very spread out site. There are several adits, some of which are very wet, but all are worth preserving. Those on the north side are generally trials and do not provide any real access but the dressing floors and buildings are well worth a visit as they are particularly well preserved. By following the track above the dressing floors, and after a fairly lengthy climb, other adits can be found but these were not explored due to lack of equipment and bad weather conditions.

The Glendalough and Glendasan mines were worked between 1795-1957, although the main period was 1850-1880. The approximate output was about 60,000 tons of galena (PbS) with some sphalerite (ZnS). Many of the adits were re-opened and investigated between 1943-1957.

The Glenmalure valley is the next one across from Glendasan and the Club examined two locations here. One near the start of the valley (west) was where a level was remembered from a previous trip but only the top of a possible open shaft was found. At the end of a road, near the Youth Hostel, the obvious spoil tips on the north of the valley were climbed but there were no obvious levels. However, more spoil tips on the south of the valley were investigated and a level flooded to the roof was found.

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Last modified: 05/02/07