anything to do with the Allihies copper mines on the Beara peninsula, West Cork, Ireland, 19th century mines that reopened for a short while in the 1950’s. Here lots of photos and photography of the mines.
Cast a Spell Allihies is a short video made up of many clips taken over the last 24 months.
Watch the video
The films were all shot on DSLR and put together by Balooz as a promotional visual tool for Allihies. If anybody wants a video made for whatever purpose please get in touch for a chat.
The song was written and performed by Pat Higgins and recorded at shotgun studios. Many thanks to Pat for giving his permission to use the track.
Choughs Allihies Mines a protected bird which is known as the friendly crow rearing their chicks mainly on sea cliff areas but also in the mine shafts of the old Copper Mines of Allihies on the Beara Peninsula. Recently I was contacted by Carol who used to work at the museum. She was keen to do a one hour survey of the comings and goings of the birds as part of a statistical survey for Ireland. Nationally these birds have been declining so it is important to keep up the counting of them to see how they are doing. We spent a nice afternoon counting birds in and out of the shafts and seeing if they were carrying food or cleaning out nests. We did not see any chicks but they can be heard screeching for food fairly easily. Very worthwhile thing to do.
Choughs Allihies Mines
Coming up soon, if anyone is interested is a free one day course to be held locally on identifying butterfly’s. You do not need to be an expert as this course will show you all you need to know if interested feel free to email Carol here. Dates to be confirmed.
North Engine, or going out to have a look for what is left of the North Engine. Had a talk with another Friend of Allihies Mines who was telling me that the North Engine just above the Man Engine was the first engine to have been built. I had seen a 1950’s photo of it and had no recollection of the building in my younger years as a visitor to Allihies. So I decided to go for a walk up to it to see what was left. When Deccie and myself got there of course I realised that I had seen it before. However seeing it now after seeing a photograph of it in the 1950’s added a bit of extra interest to it. The North engine was apparently only for pumping the water out of the mine. When the Man Engine was built it did a lot more. Lifting the ore, transporting the men etc.
Also got some extra views out to sea and over towards the Caminches and Coom mine sites too.
North Engine
General view from below the mines, the Man Engine is aboveThe Man Engine, in the reservoir below is a horseshoe shaped wall to filter the waterThe remains of the North EngineNorth engine remains and the original open cast.Man Engine looking out towards the Dursey Island in the distanceLooking towards Reentrisk, down by the sea the first mine DooneenLooking towards Reentrisk, down by the sea the first mine DooneenCoom is the furthest away and Caminches engines
There is another report about mine stuff here, the port area (coast guard) down beyond Balydonegan beach.
