Ballingarry Coal Mines are underground coal mines located near the village of Ballingarry, South Tipperary, Ireland. Situated near the border with County Kilkenny, the mines are now disused and have flooded. Other nearby centres of population are Killenaule and New Birmingham.
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The type of coal mined here was anthracite, a hard, smokeless fuel with a high calorific value and relatively low ash content. The coalfield is situated in the Slieve Ardagh range of hills and is an extension of the Leinster coalfields, being separated by a narrow band of Carboniferous limestone. The deposits, which are highly faulted, consist of three strata, the lowest averaging nine inches in thickness and the others being approximately two feet thick. Due to the inclined coal layer acting as a slippage plane, substantial amounts of the deposits have been crushed and blended with the upper and lower boundary shale. This has resulted in a less commercially attractive material known locally as culm.[1] Due to its high elevation, melting snow in the Slieve Ardagh region intermittently resulted in large volumes of flood-water with a short 'Time of Concentration'. This sometimes threatened to overwhelm the mines ordinary pumping capacity.
From 1826, the main commercial enterprise was the Mining Company of Ireland which ended operations in 1926.[2] In the 1840s, 50,000 tons per year were extracted here.[3] The mines featured significantly during the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848. By 1866, twelve pits were being worked locally while three had recently been abandoned.[4] From 1942 until 1950, the mines were managed by the government under the name Mianrai Teo.
In 1953, the mining lease for the area was purchased from the government by Tommy O'Brien for £50,000. O'Brien, originally from Co. Mayo, returned from Lancashire in England and soon many locals who had also emigrated from the area returned to work the mines. Three years later, 330 men were employed there and future employment prospects were good, with the new pit at Gurteen having been recently opened and "British coal up another 30 shillings a ton in the Dublin area". Wages varied between £15 and £25 per week, depending on quantity mined.[5] By the early 1970s, the mines were in financial difficulties and management were seeking government intervention.[6] In 1971, 100 workers were made redundant and the following year the mines went into receivership resulting in the redundancy of another 150 men, just before the first oil crisis.[7] Maintenance of the mines was continued for a period, and disaster was narrowly averted in 1973 when an underground fire threatened the lives of 17 workers.[8] Despite these efforts the mines closed, and with the pumps disconnected the pits flooded. The second oil crisis resulted in soaring fuel prices, and it appeared the mines would once again be seen as a viable enterprise.
In 1978, Kealy Mines commenced explorations in the area. The name derived from the surnames of its two principals, Patrick Keating, a civil engineer originally from Ballylooby in Tipperary and Gilbert Howley, a native of Co. Mayo. As a student, Keating had worked for O'Brien at the Gurteen pit before emigrating to work on the M1 motorway in England. He returned to Ireland in the early sixties and later became involved with Howley in the latter's civil engineering and excavation business. They reopened workings at Lickfinn, near the village of New Birmingham, which accessed the coal by Slope mining. Initially the mines employed 34 miners and the Electricity Supply Board expressed an interest in using Ballingarry coal for the generation of power and so reduce its dependence on imported oil.[9] However, in preliminary testing at a power station designed to burn peat, the high temperatures produced by the anthracite caused its fire-grates to overheat. Coal dust was supplied to the Irish Sugar processing plant at Thurles and they became an important customer. Financing also proved a difficulty for Kealy Mines, and it was acquired by a Canadian consortium in 1982. Flair Resources Ltd., trading as Tipperary Anthracite was headed by John Young, a Tipperary emigrant to Canada. The new company expanded the workforce to 80 and transferred surface processing such as washing, screening and bagging to the old pithead at Gurteen. It also opened a second underground 'cutting' and investigated exploiting the more marginal No. 1 seam. An electrically powered coal-cutter was employed and investment allowed some further modernisation of plant. Extraction concentrated on the No. 2 seam, with its reserves estimated at that time to be 3 million tonnes. By 1985, Tipperary Anthracite was also in receivership. Financial irregularities regarding IDA grants were investigated by the Gardaí and highlighted on RTÉ current affairs programme 'Today Tonight'. In 1989, Emereld Resources was granted a licence to reopen the mines and for a while sporadic work continued at Lickfinn-Earl's Hill.
Mining on a reduced scale progressed for some time before the pit again closed. Unlike the recent tourist enterprise at Arigna, very little evidence now remains of Tipperary's coal mining heritage at Ballingarry.