After a very windy night, we awoke to bad weather. What does one do on a windy rainy day? We went to Glengowla Mines. The mine was abandoned in 1865 after 14 years of working.
During that short 14 year period, 545 square metres was stopped to produce 390 tonnes of lead containing 28 kilograms of silver. It closed because of a legal fight with the owners. When the legal matters were cleared up the mine was full of water. It remained that way until the present owners decided in the 1990's to pump out the water to see what was down there. By opening up a new entrance to the mine and doing extensive renos the mine has opened to the public.
Our tour guide today just loves the mine. He has worked here for a few years by doing tours and also helping to open up new areas of the mine. We were the only ones on the tour. The guide's enthusiasm made the tour very exciting. The miners used brute strength to hammer the drills into the rock. The mine opened just after the famine ended so that men were willing to do anything to make some money. The working conditions were not that bad. There were no gases to worry about. The rock was hard enough that the ceilings and walls did not have to be shored up. There is always water running in the mine to keep dust to a minimum.
After we finished the tour we walked around the grounds to see buildings and mine shafts with the remains of ore extraction techniques. We also found out that highway N59 to Galway was closed due to high winds. They were very worried about trees blowing over on the road. We decided to not head out to the Connemara headlands as the winds were just too strong. We headed back to the B&B.
On the way back we were able to see the actual bridge that was used in the filming of "The Quiet Man". We spent the afternoon watching the movie "The Quiet Man". We could recognize many of the spots in Cong that were used in the making of the film.
The weather is supposed to improve over the next few days. We sure hope so.
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