County Leitrim
The Largy region of North Leitrim is a large townland that is exclusively uphill and lies on the north-east of the Dartry mountains, overlooking Glenade Lough and Eagle’s Rock. As a caving region it was first explored in the 1950s by numerous expedition teams from England, most notably the Craven Pothole Club (CPC). During such expeditions, caves such as nearby Teampall Shetric, already locally known, were first surveyed and recorded in detail. Deep Pot On Largy was first descended in 1958.
In the following decades the nearby caving regions of Fermanagh and Cavan, which had been initally investigated years before, came to great prominence with the continued investment of interest from British cavers, as well as burgeoning native groups.
While not entirely neglected, interest in the caves of North Leitrim and Sligo waned enormously. In 2012 however the Shannon Group, looking for new projects to invest in, organised a week long expedition to located and survey, or often resurvey, the caves of Largy. Irish Speleology No. 23 details their adventures and their results and makes for essential reading.
Sadly, I was not involved in the expedition and it was only in the following year that I started to become interested in caving. However, I have made it up to Largy multiple times and visited Deep Pot on many occasions since then. Most caves on Largy consist of dramatic vertical pots with little or no horizontal development. Deep Pot is more complex and reasonably well developed, measuring 112m deep and over 400m in length.
Deep Pot is located in a fault controlled rift that runs east-west. It is composed of numerous pitches and a small stream which is not always possible to avoid. In many areas the cave has very large amounts of well-beded and clean limestone, something of a rarity in Largy. After two pitches the cave then branches in two: the Window Series and the Waterfall Series. To my discredit I have not yet made it down the more complex Window Series, as I mainly visited this cave on Shannon Group trips to re-bolt the cave and to dig at the base of the Waterfall Series.
The dig occurred over a few weekends in summer 2015 but has not since progressed. I have little faith in it, however, I still have half the cave to return to, so except an update here in the future!
Caves Of Ireland 