Cave dive (Midnight sump in Boats Cave) Diver: Raymond Bell Sherpa's: Adam, Kelly Met at the Hub, got gear together and headed up the parking for boats. Team work down the chokes with the bags until we reached the first lake, Ray donned the dive kit here. At the entrance of the sump, tied the line to a natural, final checks and off I went, Vis was good at this point til i met the line, where I joined my line, which I cut and left in place. On It went into a very low level poi

Pollasillagh Downstream Dive Report: Diver: Nathaniel Laplaud Sherpa: Raymond Bell Date: 18 Oct 2026 Entered via Pollasillagh having rigged a ladder for descent. The new bar is an improvement on the new rigging setup. Dropped the bags at the ducks and headed upstream to sight a potential dive site in Mastadon Upstream. Very promising site and worth a visit. Good water flow coming out of the sump. We then returned and set into the exciting dive base of Downstream only to be di

Freda's Hole 5th October 2026 Nathaniel, Ray and Andy Freda's connected to Pollthanarees? The second dive of Sump 2 Freda's yeilded very exciting results! The enterance to the sump is a very tight 0 visibility squeeze for 15m, at 5m there is a head sized airbell where one must pass over the line and again 5m later when the headway gets too small must pass over the line again to open into wide sumped passage ~3m wide. This was followed to the end of the derbyshire tube where a

Dio's Way Sump reconnected. Over a series of 11 dives, Upper cradle now has a continuous line to lower cradle once again. Ray started exploration by pushing upstream from Lower cradle in which together we pushed 200m of line. On Arthurs 15th Anniversary we returned to his original dive site in Dio's way after a dive in a mistaken area now named Mouse House. The way on was left open in Dio's way that day and since Raymond Bell put 2 dives in to extend the line slightly. Today

Lower cradle upstream sump 8th July 2026 Ray (Diver), Nathaniel Dive time 30mins After the July 2025 floods, the previously laid line had been washed out, so the plan was to simply to lay a new line. Visibility was around 7 inches at most. After a solid tie-off over to a flake, I went 5 m in, snooped on to a rock and piled some rocks on top, continuing on down many dead ends, going down to 5.4 m. Another belay on a solid flake at -4.5 m, then I headed NE, following the more o

[17:42, 14/06/2026] Nathaniel: Cat's Hole - Downstream Sump 13th June 2026 New dive done in downstream section of the canal. Is a 2.5m wide high flow siphon sump. ~1m of clearance max depth -2m Left in open passage with reel on the line. Had to turn due to gas limits. Very similar to section I was diving in Freda's just has to get a bit wider. [17:42, 14/06/2026] Nathaniel: Cats Hole - Downstream Sump 14th June 2026 Another 20m added downstream, 10m added upstream (canal) Ent

Club Trip Report 30th May 2026 John Thomas Nat, Ray, Mark, Bryan, Dorothy, Conall, José, James Aim to visit sump and put Nat the diver into the water. 10m handline, 10m traverse line, x2 12l cylinders. Drysuit under oversuit. Excellent Trip thank you to all for your immense help! Really exciting progress made. Callout taken by Irish Cave Divers. Everyone in the group had a tackle bag to carry each over the fields and into the cave. The cave starts with a low horizontal crawl,

New passage pushed in Cats Hole. Cats Hole B Sorry @⁨Bryan caving⁩, @⁨Mark⁩ the new hole was pushed. Ray went to show me where the room was and I gauged thst I could fit after we moved one boulder. We rigged a 10m rope and without any srt kit played about with rigging carabiniers into a descender. After finding a suitable config we need up just converting to a belay system. The room dropped 2m into a boulder chokes room. A passage right was first expired but terminated quickl

Lower Stream Passage, Sump 1 & Extensions Ray & Nathaniel (3/05/26) The night before, a discussion took place on what to do tomorrow. Either Palnasac Sump, Nathaniel Diving and I dig out the rift so i can fit to explore it or Freda's Hole Sump. (I didn't plan to go through on this), So if was left to decide in the Morning. Around 11am awaken for me, so breakfast and coffee was got the gear ready. Nathaniel walked in and Freda's if was! We took Nathaniels van up, parked up and

Diver: Nathaniel Cavers: Ray, Mark, Chris, Adden, Dorthery , Peter Dive report from Pollnagollum of the Boats Fermanagh last weekend 25th April Dove midnight Sump with x2 3ls Line is regained ~10m into the sump. Contious through the airbell and beyond through a narrow sandy squeeze. This was passed and belay with cut line left. Suspect either broken or was the final tie off. Way on is dark opening but I did read of Arthur that everything closed down. Anyone have reference to

Nathaniel & Ray 23/04/2026 Ray finished work early, arrived back at the Hub, and Nathaniel was there so we decided to take a small trip over to look at Polnasac, where there was a landslide after the floods in July 2025 to see if we could still get in. So the main aim for the trip was to look at and access the sump in Polnasac and the Pool in Hanging Rock Cave. Polnasac sump area looking a little different, but still accessible. A rift was looked at to the left, which I could

26/04/2026 Peter & Ray With a later start than Saturday's caving at the time of noon, leaving from the Hub (Caving Hut) we decided on Little Gortmaconnel pot, as Peter had not done it. Nathaniel was already away from around 9 am or before cave diving at the Mable Arch Caves, he had awoken me earlier by the sound of air out the back while he was getting ready to go. myself and Peter got the rope and other rigging gear packed up, an a quick stop at the shop for some snacks,

March 22nd Ray, Mark, Bryan We parked up and Ray cheerfully told us it was only a “bit of a trek” to the entrance. Spirits were high heading off, and not long into it we stumbled across a café, which felt too perfectly timed to ignore. Coffee was had, excuses were made, and we convinced ourselves it was essential preparation for the “real” climb ahead. Eventually we dragged ourselves away and pushed on up, helped along by the scenery and the promise of what was ahead. At th

Report 11 April 2026 Cave: Carrickcoppan 3 Peruvian Pot Cavers: Ray, Peter, Mark, Nathaniel Equipment: Type A 20m Rope Day 1 of the horizontal leader training was met with apocalyptic weather. Strong winds and hard rain. We convened in the Barn to begin a briefing that evolved into a full day event, covering a massive range of information on Pre-trip checks, Weather, Group information, Cave choice, access to caves, call outs & overdue, access to dry clothing, emergency comfor

21st March 2026 After the AGM meeting that morning, we were itching to get out caving. After a decent fry up we hit the road, the weather was fantastic. Nearly too good to be in a cave all day. But we didn’t travel from Dublin to Yorkshire for sunbathing. The plan today was to do a classic Yorkshire trip, a pull-through of Swinsto Hole. A pull-through caving trip is: “…an advanced technique wherecavers use a single rope to descend a pitch (shaft), then pull it down from above

Mark & Ray (Bryran to come later) 20th March 2026 After arriving at Leeds Airport, we hired a car to get to YSS Caving Hut. We decided to try to get some sleep for an hour or two before we head out caving. Mark fell asleep, while I couldn't do so. When Mark arose out of his beauty sleep, we geared up and headed over to Runscar Hill to do some easier in-and-out surface-type caves, which we thought were just walking passages, but there seemed to be a fair bit of crawling to s

Gleniff Horseshoe 21st February 2026 Mark, Bryan & Ray ( Was meant to be a lot more members on this one, but things happen, worked out for the best really, as it turned out to be a trip that too many wouldn't have worked and be a lot of waiting around, too cold and wet for that stuff) Ray & Mark met up at the Hub for around 10 am, piled all into one car and headed over to the meeting point over at the Horseshoe area, where we met Bryan, who had camped up on the mountain, "May

Nathaniel, Ray 10/02/2026 Headed up to Cuilcagh Mountain, parking at the Marble Arch Show Cave Carpark, After getting the Key for the gate, we headed across the dry valley rifted area to the right at the end of the carpark, exploring some areas of interest, not finding must bar one hole between boulders where we tied the camera and a light to a rope and lowered it to see, but to later see on the footage there was little bar a bit of rubbish down in there. On over towards Crad

Saturday 24/01/26 Shannon cave trip Bryan, Ray, Mark and two Cornish miners that where visiting. Meeting at The Hub for 11 am. After deciding the cave to be the Shannon cave system. The weather has been miserable all week with steady drizzle all day. A cautious approach to any cave we do must be taken. Taking two cars, we drove up to the farm yard below the track to the Shannon, a quick chat to the landowner and his wife, who had breakfast cooking and the fire blazing in the

Trip report for Noones hole 27th December Me and Ray met up at the Hub, threw the gear together, and headed off. Ray rigged the first couple of pitches and I took the last two. At the bottom of the first pitch Ray spotted what he thought was a bit of calcite sitting on a ledge. He poked it. It was a dead fish. And for reasons unknown, he then sniffed his finger. I wasn't enticed to follow that decision.. We pushed on through towards Crucifixion Crawls which were as grim as ev