The coalfield
The Slieveardagh Coalfield runs about 11km long and 5km wide, and its two seams of anthracite are barely 18 to 24 inches deep – thin enough that working them was always more stubbornness than fortune. That stubbornness lasted a long time. By the early 1800s around 35 collieries employed roughly 1,000 men across these hillsides, and an 1824 Act of Parliament handed large parts of the field to the Mining Company of Ireland, which built Mardyke Village, reckoned to be Ireland’s first purpose-built mining settlement.
The last chapters were short. State-owned Mianraí Teoranta took over several pits in 1941; Tommy O’Brien’s Ballingarry Collieries became the biggest local employer through the 1950s and 60s; and Emerald Resources made the final attempt at commercial extraction in 1989, which lasted about two years before the industry closed for good. What’s left is scattered across the countryside – old trackways, stone engine houses, capped shafts.
The Mining Remembered trail and virtual tour string these remnants together, from former colliery sites to the 19th-century briquette factory (now a plastics-recycling plant) and the old Littleton peat works. One caveat worth stating plainly: many of the mine sites sit on private land. Use the online heritage map and virtual tour rather than climbing gates, and don’t go poking about capped shafts.
The walk at Derryvella Lake
If you’ve an hour and one choice to make, make it the Ecological Loop Walk around Derryvella Lake (Loch Dhoire Mheile). Slieveardagh Rural Development created it with Bord na Móna on former peat-working land: a short lakeside path for a gentle turn, and a longer loop that runs out through regenerating bog. The lake is clean enough to hold white-clawed crayfish, which don’t tolerate polluted water, so their presence is a fair signal in itself.
The birdlife is the reason to come in winter. Whooper swans, teal, mallard, pintail and wild geese use the water, and lapwing and fieldfare work the surrounding ground. Bog cotton, furze and wild orchids come through in the warmer months. Keep a dog on a lead through the March-to-July breeding season – there are ground-nesting birds here that a loose dog will scatter.
Killenaule heritage centre
The Slieveardagh Heritage Centre in Killenaule opened in 1995 in the former St Mary’s Church of Ireland, a three-bay building put up between 1838 and 1840 on the site of a medieval church. Entry is free. Inside you’ll find exhibitions on the mining era and a display on the Derrynaflan hoard – the eighth-century chalice and paten found in a nearby bog in 1980 – along with the local library and internet access.
One honest note: the centre’s hours aren’t posted anywhere reliable online, and the town has learned to ring first. The number on the parish’s own site is your best bet before making a special trip.
Getting there and around
The hills are car country. From Kilkenny, take the R689 north-west roughly 20km toward Renaghmore; from Tipperary town, the N76 east then the R689. The main parking is at Derryvella Lake, signposted from the R689 – a level car park with picnic tables and wheelchair-accessible fishing bays, and a flat lakeside path that suits a buggy or reduced mobility. The wider trails are firm dirt or gravel and turn muddy after rain, so bring boots and a raincoat; there’s nowhere to buy so much as a cup of tea on the hills.
The nearest railway stations are Thurles (about 45km) and Kilkenny (about 30km), with limited bus links to Killenaule.
For a genuine reason to detour, the Famine Warhouse 1848 stands 3.5km south, where the Young Irelander rising of that year fizzled out in a farmhouse standoff around the Widow McCormack’s cabbage patch – a small building carrying a large slice of Irish history.