A RITE OF PASSAGE – (re)discovery and exploration of the Creevy Rising Cave in co. Monaghan

This month Archaeology Ireland magazine (no.96)  features an article "EXTREME ARCHAEOLOGY: Going Underground in Monaghan" by Marion Dowd, Alasdair Kennedy, Artur Kozlowski and Sam Moore. It provides a scientific insight into the possible date, origins and functions of the man made structures that we found during the exploration in the Creevy Cave in 2008. Read my account of the research, discovery and exploration of this magnificent cave: A Rite of Passage. 

Let’s face it, County Monaghan was never much of a caving region: the whole area was investigated in 1964-65 by members of Irish Caving Club (ICC) and as a result only three major caves with active streamways were described and surveyed: Fin McCool's Cave (400m of passages), Tiragarvan (300m) and Poll'd (a 70m long passage containing a 13m pitch). Since then, some small extensions were made by diving in Fin McCool’s Cave and in the Tiragarvan River Cave in 1973; in the latter an estimated further 135 metres of dry passage was discovered. But as the Irish Troubles worsened County Monaghan became a caving backwater, its border with Northern Ireland making it a convenient Republican bolt-hole and consequently a no-go area for cavers. No further exploration took place, and its known caves became quietly forgotten in caving circles.

Much of the winter of 2008 I spent on research and it was then when I came across the first edition of the Irish Caver journal from 1965, almost entirely devoted to the area north of Carrickmacross town. This was where the ICC had published the outcome of their Monaghan exploration. Although it was a fascinating read, the journal didn’t leave much to dream of in terms of further exploration: according to the ICC “the chance of finding anything else in this area comparable to these three caves is now 0%”. Not that I was particularly disputatious of their bold statement, but it was just asking to be challenged! Ironically taking the lead from the first Irish Caver it was clear to me that the Creevy Rising should be re-checked first.. The ICC had investigated it in 1964 for about 10m, reaching a narrow rift that closed down to water level with “submerged arches visible under the water”. That was all I needed to read to start my trolley rolling.

Divers’ despair

For the trip I teamed up with Al Kennedy who earlier that year  pushed the nearby Finn McCool's Cave together with Paul Doig. Not aware of the existence of The Irish Caver journal, Al had some other sites in mind for checking but after reading the ICC's description of the Creeve Rising the agreement was unanimous. We arrived in Carrickmacross by bus from Belfast and Dublin, two social outcasts going cave diving in the middle of the week. The sun was shining and local girls were waving hellos as we strolled out of the town pushing our trolleys loaded with diving gear. So far so good. After two miles of pleasant walking the road crossed the sizeable Creevy stream, and following it upstream through a field we quickly located the rising. The first look was enough to tell that no one had been there for decades: the stream was resurging from a pile of boulders and fallen mature trees, and we needed to do some lumberjacking to clear the entrance.

The chamber behind the entrance seemed to be flooded to the roof so I kitted up and looked around with nervous anticipation for the “flooded arches”, but they were nowhere to be seen. Instead there was a small canal, one meter wide with a half-meter high roof. We followed the canal impatiently. After 30m of swimming, the narrow canal opened into a bigger chamber and the ceiling rose making the chances of encountering a sump less and less likely. It was a major disappointment for us. We had followed that, somehow controversial in British cave diving circles, line of cave divers who were sea divers in the first place. Fascinated by underwater caverns and shipwrecks we subsequently learned overhead environment and cave diving techniques. Thus our mindsets are quite different from those of cave divers who came from a caving background. It was always amusing to read cave diving reports from the 70s and 80s where the appearance of a sump was always welcomed with dismay and once in the water any possibility of surfacing was greeted with a sigh of relief. Their primary objective and passion was to find more dry cave passages behind sumps and going under water with diving equipment wasn’t something they necessarily longed for. Contrarily, perhaps blasphemously, for us dry sections of caves were a necessary evil: once in the water we prayed for the sump to keep going. And so there we were, two very disappointed cave divers in ongoing dry cave passage!

Following the Divers’ Despair the water became shallow and a 4m wide and 1.2m high canal continued as far as we could see. After another 100m on all-fours, combined with some desperate attempts to dive in 30cm of water (a technique applied mainly as a silent protest against the unfavorable turn of events), I was forced to drop one of his cylinders. Things looked grim. The final blow came when the passage turned west and became comfortable walking sized passage but we continued, although with little hope now of any exciting diving. Eventually we arrived at a boulder collapse and for a brief moment hoped that our ordeal was over. The choke looked precarious and common sense was suggesting that we turn back. But then there was the other voice, luring us further in with the promises of caverns measureless to man. We heeded the latter. Kindly, but also with a suddenly sharpen sense of self-preservation, I let Al go first (hence You Go First Choke) and only when ongoing passage was confirmed, I ditched the rest of my diving kit with a theatrical sigh of resignation and followed.

Beyond Liminality

The boulder choke marked a change in the morphology of the cave and a change in our mental topography in which dry cave was subordinate to submerged cave. With the shedding of the final diving equipment we became cavers rather than divers in a cave. With this new mindset we gained new eyes and a new appreciation for where we were. As we passed several more short sections of canal to reach river passages of easy walking dimensions the significance of our find sunk in, and it was with excitement rather than desperation that we progressed to each corner, now hoping for the dry passage to continue! Our disappointment faded. We passed pretty oxbows and a small muddy inlet, and when we reached the section of passage we later named the Megalithic Way the walls were over 10m apart and the roof was 5m above our heads. We had found the largest chamber in Monaghan, and it was looking likely that we had also found the longest cave in the county too. Maybe dry caving wasn’t that bad after all!

After the Megalithic Way the river split, and then rejoined, before smaller canal passages and a series of ducks led to a small, rubbish-strewn chamber. From here there was a choice of a strongly-draughting but very constricted duck or a small, sandy tube. In our pursuit of dry cave we surprised ourselves and choose the tube in hope that it would bypass the duck. It became too tight, although we expected it could be dug. Here we turned back, estimating on our return that the main stream passage was 500m long. We returned the following week, and quickly regained the limit of the cave. Lower water levels made the terminal duck a more inviting prospect, and it was swiftly passed – to surface into daylight! Following the surface stream, we passed through a second, shorter cave to another pot and another cave.

Having little experience in surveying dry cave passages using instruments with greater precision than a diving compass we invited Robin Sheen, a seasoned, Clare based caver and the member of many international caving expeditions to help us with the survey of our find. During the first two days of surveying we collected data from the rising up to You Go First Choke and then we moved to surveying the Megalithic Way and pushing the side passages. The 802,701 passage, which seemed to be an inlet, ended in a choke. The dry Rat Run reached another section of streamway which eventually sumped. Returning to dive the Rat Run sump in very low water we found it dried up but too constricted. Revisiting with a shovel several hours of excavating glutinous mud uncovered the Broken Time Machine, not the most impressive or spacious piece of underground passage in Britain or Ireland! This also ended in a choke. The survey suggests that the Rat Run, Broken Time Machine and 802,701 form a large oxbow to the main stream, which may also be accessible through Sump Passage. When the exploration seemed to be almost over Robin and Danny Burke found the most beautiful chamber in the cave. Heavily decorated with the flowstone, gour pools and stals, this high level chamber was later christened Robin’s Nest. In total 1024m of cave passages were found and surveyed with some further potential through digging or diving.

Mysterious visitors

But the most unexpected discovery was still waiting for us. On one of our early surveying trips I was checking an unpromising low side passage, and glimpsed a strangely regular heap of stones just meters ahead when my light went out. Poking at my helmet as a temporary solution to the long-ignored connection problem the light came back, together with a big shock. I was facing two neatly built stone walls, about one metre high, 0.75 metres apart and three metres long, and roofed transversely with large limestone lintels. It was a man-made souterrain. The original entrance must have been directly above its end, but had been neatly covered over by more limestone lintels. 

As we exited the souterrain passage into the main stream passage we noticed other evidence of human occupation. Here the river flowed around a muddy platform, about 10 metres long and 3 metres wide, which had been raised above the level of the river by a low drystone wall. At the upstream end of the platform a horseshoe-shaped structure about 0.75 metres across has been built, and to the side of this were small heaps of ash. We had eached passed that spot many times in the last three months and we had not noticed anything unusual!

Perhaps we should feel disappointed that we were not the first to discover the cave, but we didn't feel that way at all. Instead, we felt privileged and somehow connected with those unknown visitors since we shared the secret of Creevy. Questions of who these people were, and what was the nature of their presence in the cave, may go unanswered. What we knew for sure was that with over a kilometre of passages Creevy Rising Cave was the longest, and the finest, cave in County Monaghan.

The survey of the Creevy Cave:

All photos by Al Kennedy, text Artur Kozlowski edited and supplemented (cave description) by Al Kennedy