Qualla: Ballingarry Coal Mines https://qualla.com/ballingarry-coal-mines en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:12 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/6/e/ballingarry-coal-mines-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Ballingarry Coal Mines https://qualla.com/ballingarry-coal-mines Ballingarry Coal Mines: Introduction https://qualla.com/ballingarry-coal-mines/ Photo credit Paulmccabe, CC BY-SA 3.0. There is a word for the form of culm or duff with high clay content that miners pulled out of the Slievardagh seams: shining ball. There is a word for a stick of gelignite ready to be loaded into a borehole: cane. The compressed-air rock drill with the extending mono-pod was a banshee. The pneumatic pick was a jigger. The brass token a miner threaded on a string around his neck to mark his team's full coal tubs was a tally. Every job in the Ballingarry coal mines had its own vocabulary, and most of it died with the mines. The pits flooded after the pumps were disconnected in the mid-1970s. Beneath the green hills above Ballingarry, they are still down there.

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Image: Paulmccabe | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/6/e/ballingarry-coal-mines-wp/gc6e-ballingarry-coal-mines-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Ballingarry Coal Mines: Anthracite Under the Snow https://qualla.com/ballingarry-coal-mines/ Photo credit Paulmccabe, CC BY-SA 3.0. The coal at Ballingarry was anthracite -- the hardest grade, virtually smokeless, with high calorific value and low ash. The coalfield sat in the Slievardagh range of hills, a southern extension of the great Leinster coalfields separated only by a narrow band of Carboniferous lim...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/6/e/ballingarry-coal-mines-wp/gc6e-ballingarry-coal-mines-anthracite-under-the-snow.mp3 0:06 2 full Ballingarry Coal Mines: A Century and a Half of Pulling https://qualla.com/ballingarry-coal-mines/ Photo credit Paulmccabe, CC BY-SA 3.0. From 1826 the main commercial operation was the Mining Company of Ireland, which kept going until 1926. In the 1840s, 50,000 tons a year came out of the Slievardagh hills. By 1866 twelve pits were being worked locally with three recently abandoned. The mines also became part of n...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/6/e/ballingarry-coal-mines-wp/gc6e-ballingarry-coal-mines-a-century-and-a-half-of-pulling.mp3 0:06 3 full Ballingarry Coal Mines: Underground Fire, Above-Ground Failure https://qualla.com/ballingarry-coal-mines/ Photo credit Paulmccabe, CC BY-SA 3.0. By the early 1970s the mines were in financial trouble. In 1971, 100 workers were made redundant, and 150 more lost their jobs the following year when the operation went into receivership -- just before the first oil crisis sent fuel prices soaring. In 1973 an underground fire th...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/6/e/ballingarry-coal-mines-wp/gc6e-ballingarry-coal-mines-underground-fire-above-ground-failure.mp3 0:06 4 full Ballingarry Coal Mines: Last Cuttings, and Memory https://qualla.com/ballingarry-coal-mines/ Photo credit Paulmccabe, CC BY-SA 3.0. A Canadian consortium, Flair Resources Ltd., took over operations in 1982, expanded the workforce to 80, and traded as Tipperary Anthracite. By 1985 it too was in receivership, with financial irregularities around IDA grants investigated by the Gardaí and aired on RTÉ's Today Ton...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/6/e/ballingarry-coal-mines-wp/gc6e-ballingarry-coal-mines-last-cuttings-and-memory.mp3 0:06 5 full