Ballycorus leadmines is a former lead mining and smelting centre located near Kilternan. The mine opened around 1807 and was taken over by the Mining Company of Ireland (MCI) in 1826 who owned and operated the site up until closure in 1913. After the mine was exhausted in the 1860s, Ballycorus continued to operate as a smelting facility receiving ore from other MCI sites such as the mines in Glendalough, County Wicklow. The most distinctive surviving remnant of the site is the ruin of the flue chimney that lies close to the summit of Carrickgollogan hill. Further down the slopes of the hill, many other former buildings and structures from the leadworks can also be found.
Most of the activity at Ballycorus occurred at the smelting and rolling facility constructed by MCI in the valley below the mine workings. This facility received ore not only from Ballycorus but also from MCI's mine at Luganure, in Glendalough, County Wicklow for processing. The ore from Luganure was carried by horse and cart to the railway station at Rathdrum where it was transferred to a train and brought to Shankill. A siding on the Harcourt Street railway line was built near Shankill station to receive the trains. From Shankill the ore was carted to Ballycorus. Lead ore was also received from MCI mines in counties Donegal and Wexford. By the 1880s it was no longer commercially viable to process Irish ores and the smelter was put to work processing ore from the Great Laxey mine in the Isle of Man up until closure in 1913.
Photographic records show that the flue chimney was originally much taller with an extra brick section rising above the viewing platform. It is the only example of such a flue and chimney to have been built in Ireland. The top third of the chimney has been removed as it was deemed unsafe as has the lower section of the external stairs.
Your mission
To log this Virtual Cache you must take a picture of your caching name with the smelting tower in the background and attach it to your found log. The photo must be taken within 100m of the tower and not from Ballybrack... Optionally, in keeping with the theme, take a photo of your hand doing the 'heavy metal' pose with the tower in the background. Logs without an appropriate photo will be deleted without warning.
Virtual Rewards 2.0 - 2019/2020
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between June 4, 2019 and June 4, 2020. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 2.0 on the https://www.geocaching.com/blog/2019/05/introducing-virtual-rewards-2-0/ Geocaching Blog