A Photo-Journal Of The Irish Underground
Just a quick write-up to highlight that over the last month I have added two new short cave pages:
–Poll Gonzo in County Clare; and
–Carrowmore Caverns in County Sligo.
I hope you enjoy and stay tuned as my next upload with be on a much greater scale, featuring many photos from Indian caves!
Hello all, just a quick update! My website relaunch, which happened just under two weeks ago, has been great success. Aside from the new layout, which I love, it has been receiving quite a lot of traffic and subscriptions. I am especially thankful to the many people, most of whom I do not know, who took the time to send me messages of appreciation and to tell me their own stories. It makes the effort all worthwhile.
So in other news Noone’s Hole, that fantastic pothole and cave in Fermanagh, now has an entry page full of new photos and text. I am also especially pleased to present a spectacular and awe-inspiring Noone’s Hole themed drawing, created by the wonderfully talented Becks Kelly (have a look at her Instagram account). Find it all here.
I have also updated the About section of this website with details about competitions that I have won, as well as publications in which my work has appeared. I hope to see these lists grow over the next while!
Finally, for those on Instagram who wish to follow my work, find me here on my new account: Caves of Ireland Instatgram.
I am pleased to present a newly reworked and improved version on my website Caves of Ireland! The site, which initially started as a personal blog in 2014, quickly developed and, despite a period of recent silence, continues to attract large numbers. With over fifty thousand views and almost twenty thousand visitors, and a growing photographic archive, I have decided it’s time to re-lauch it.
Many hours of work have gone into making this possible. Every single photo, of which there are about 300, was re-stamped, resized and very many were re-edited. All of the text has been revised, and many old items removed and new ones added. New entries are being worked on at present.
The most immediate change that will be noticed is the overall appearance of the site. For this I am extremely grateful to Becks Kelly who, in large, redesigned the entire site. Her work has given it a neat consistency, a greater ease-of-read and a really smart look.
Here’s a page on Pollskeheenarinky Cave in County Tipperary. The majority of photos were taken in April of this year on a club trip with Breifne Caving Club. Hope you enjoy and stay tune for more!
Click here to go to the article
These photos are from a trip to Oweynagat Cave in County Roscommon last summer. It is somewhat a different theme from usual as this cave is of much archaeological and folkloric significance. I hope you enjoy!
I am pleased to announce that my photos have won a small number of awards in the last year. Of special note was the winning in all three Speleological Union of Ireland’s photo competitions at the Annual SUICRO symposium, held in Clare in October 2016. The categories were Best Irish Photos, Best Foreign Photos and Best Humorous Photos. The competition was judged by the uniquely talented Robbie Shone and I was honoured to be chosen to win first and second prizes in all three categories. The winning photos from the first two categories are below; I’ve not included the humorous photos as they are fairly X-rated!
First place:
Polnagossan, Co. Cavan, 2016.
Second place:
Lower Cradle, Co. Fermanagh, 2016.
First place:
Pirogosh Cave, Albania, 2016.
Second place:
Pirogosh Cave, Albania, 2016.
Stay tuned for the up-coming feature page on the Irish-Albanian expedition of 2016. In other news, while it’s been some some time since I last updated my blog I am pleased to report the site has had over 21,000 views since its inception in June 2014. Hope to see it stay busy over the next while!
Thankfully Cradle Hole is now done and I am glad to get in published and showcase a few ‘big’ shots. By this I am referring to some photos of great chambers and passageways. These are captured with the help of large and somewhat complicated lighting as well as a finite, though welcome, resource of patience on behalf of my caver friends!
This page will still requires a return trip to capture some of the prettier parts of Upper Cradle Cave, but for now, I hope photos will suffice:
I’ve been busy and work has taken me away from home, leaving me with shorter, more crammed and hectic weekends. At the same time, I’ve been putting some thought into upgrading the webpage and buying a domain name and this has somewhat stalled my effort to update the current page. However, I’ve still had time for caving and cave photography and now have a backlog of photos to add, so over the next few weeks expect quite a few more updates!
I will start with this one, one of my favourites: Peter Bryant’s Bullock Hole in County Fermanagh. The shots are the result of three separate trips over a period of two years and it has been a difficult one to finalise. I hope you enjoy!
Click here to see the full article
Changes in my circumstances coupled with the bout of horrific storms and flooding that hit Ireland over the last two months have kept me above ground for far too long. Further to this, my trusty Sigma 10-20mm wide angle lens finally succumbed to dust damage in Teampall Shetric cave.
However, there is also some good news! I expect to return to caving soon and a new lens will be an absolute must. I’ve also had some success in promoting my photos. Most significantly, in December I won First Prize in the Geological Survey of Ireland’s annual Du Noyer Photographic Competition. With so many fantastic photos in the competition I was delighted that a personal favourite photo of one Fermanagh’s best caves, Pollnatagha, won. The image, which can be seen below as well as here on the GSI’s competition page, depicts a caver descending into the massive 60m long x 40m wide pot 60m below the boggy surface of East Cuilcagh:
In October I also won two Merits in the highly contested UK Hidden Earth Caving Forum. Considering the very tough international competition, I was delighted to have the following two shots awarded. The first is also from Pollnatagha while the second is from County Tipperary’s Pollskeheenarinky Cave:
Finally, another photo taken recently in Marble Arch cave, was one of twelve winning shots that will feature in the Geological Society of London’s 2016 calendar. A news article about this was featured on the BBC the GSL‘s websites.
All this would not have been possible without the constant help I receive from the caving community. Heres to another year of more of the same!
Time for a quick update on the recent places I’ve been visiting over the last few weeks. I spent two days caving in North Leitrim recently and, despite some epic camera gear failures and only a duo of cavers (me included!), we managed to come out with a few shots worth keeping. We visited the much neglected Pollrunda:
as well as one of my favourites, Teampall Shetric:
The pages for both caves have been updated with additional photos. Prior to these trips I visited Peter Bryant’s Bullock Hole in East Cuilcagh:
I have not yet put up a page for this site as I am lacking a decent shot of the iconic entrance pitch. Oh well, best to leave something for another time and another trip! I visited here with with Breifne Caving Club and not long after that we visited Prod’s Pot:
I also do not yet have a page for Prod’s. This cave will take a little time to properly photograph due to really tight vertical entrance passages. I will likely have to strip down on equipment when I return to this cave. Speaking of tight passages, try this one for size, in Little Gortmaconnell Pot:
Caves Of Ireland 