1906. 
29 
A VISIT TO MITCHKI.STOWN CAVJj;. 
BY KRNKST A. BAKKK, M.A. 
[Pirate"!."] 
Mitchelstowu Cave, the largest ever discovered in the 
British Isles, is not situated at the town of that name, in 
county Cork, but ten miles away, in Tipperary, on the road 
to Cahir. Its entrance is in a small limestone hill in the 
broad vale of the Blackwater, midway between the Knock- 
mealdown Mountains and the sandstone ridges and tables of 
the Galtees. The cave was laid open in the course of 
quarrying operations in 1833, from which time to the present 
the work of exploration has gone on progressively, if at long 
intervals, and may, perhaps, continue until the extent of the 
passages known is considerably enlarged. It seems now to 
be entirely forgotten that the spot has been famous from time 
immemorial for a wonderful stalactite cavern. In October, 
1777, Arthur Young was taken into a cave, known as Skeheena- 
rinky, after the townland, but the old Irish name of which 
was Oonakareaglisha. "The opening," he says, is a cleft 
of rock in a limestone hill, so narrow as to be difficult to 
get into it. I descended by a ladder of about twenty steps, 
and then found myself in a vault of a hundred feet long, 
and fifty or sixty high : a small hole, on the left, leads from 
this a winding course of, I believe, not less than half an Irish 
mile." He goes on to describe the beautiful scenery of the 
cave, which, he says, is much superior to the Peak Cavern in 
Derbyshire, and Lord Kingsborough, who has viewed the 
Grot d'Aucel in Burgundy, says that it is not to be compared 
with it."^ The odd thing is that the very existence of this 
cavern seems to have been forgotten since the discovery of its 
much finer neighbour. Yet the trees and brushwood guarding 
its mouth are in full view of the well-frequented entrance to 
the other cave ; and Dr. Lyster Jameson, who was with 
Monsieur Martel on his visit in 1895, told me some years ago 
that an opening had been pointed out to him into a lower 
^ Arthur Young's Tour in Ireland ; ed. by A. W. Huttou. 2 vols. Bell 
1892. See pages 464-5, vol. i. 
3 
