Going underground: Ireland's best caves to visit this summer

Analysis: Most Irish caves are difficult to access, but there are a number of show caves designed to be visited by the public

Since the Stone Age, people have gathered in Ireland's fascinating unique, ancient and historic caves. They've buried their dead there, stored weapons there and animals like bears used to live in them. Most caves in Ireland are really difficult to access, but there are a number of show caves that are designed to be visited by the public.

Cave experts Dr. Eamon Doyle from the Burren and Cliffs of Moher UNESCO Global Geopark and lecturer in archaeology Dr. Marion Dowd from ATU, discussed the best caves to visit on the Today with Claire Byrne Show on RTÉ Radio 1. (This piece includes excerpts from the conversation which have been edited for length and clarity - you can hear the discussion in full below).

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There are many cave networks all over the island of Ireland, particularly in counties like Clare, Fermanagh and Cavan, so why do some parts of Ireland have so many caves and how they formed? It all depends on the rock, explains Doyle. "Some rocks are susceptible to being dissolved by water, which is basically rain. So where it rains, and it rains all over Ireland, of course, when that rain hits limestone in particular, it will dissolve that rock even though the rock is very hard.

"If you're walking around in the Burren or anywhere else, it's as hard as concrete. If you're falling, you'll feel it. A little chemical reaction happens because every drop of water that falls on that has absorbed some carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Just whatever carbon dioxide is there. Obviously, there's more now, and we're putting more in, but it'll absorb that, and that'll make that water a very weak acid. Now, nothing like as strong as vinaigrette like that, and that will start dissolving the limestone as soon as it touches it. Where we've got limestone exposed on the surface, we will have caves."

From RTÉ Radio 1's Morning Ireland, Dr Lara Cassidy from TCD on the discovery of two 4,000-year-old teeth in an Irish limestone cave.

According to Dowd, Ireland's oldest cave is in Co Limerick. "Our oldest ritual site is a fabulous cave in Limerick, Killuragh Cave, a very, very small cave", she expalins. "People were coming there about 8,000 years ago and leaving bones of their dead at the cave and stone tools. From that point onwards, people were using caves as sacred places or using them for burial. There's a very strong association at that time between the dead or the spirit world and caves. That starts to change then with the advent of Christianity, about 400, 500 AD. Then, we see people are living in caves and using them for much wider range of purposes.

"You still get caves associated with saints and part of religious practices like pilgrimages, holy wells. But we also find people are living in caves for the first time, or using them for storage, or using them as hideaways, and that continues right up to the present day. I mean, the most recent project I've been involved in was looking at a cave in North Sligo that was used by the anti-treaty IRA during the Civil War. We kind of tend to forget that in the modern day. We have very little intimate familiarity with the landscape, and with the underground landscape in particular. But that's a very modern phenomenon because people have been using caves for thousands and thousands of years."

From RTÉ Radio 1's Marian FInucane Show in 2014, Dr. Marion Dowd talks about her search for caves around Ireland that were used during the War of Independence

One cave which Dowd recently worked on is Moneen Cave in The Burren. "It's a little cave outside Ballyvaughan and cavers had discovered some archaeological material there when they were exploring the cave. Most of the archaeology found in Irish caves is found through caving activities. We were brought in as a team of archaeologists to excavate the remains, and the cavers had found part of a human skull. As our excavation progressed, we found a complete body and we had no idea at the time how old it was. We thought it might be pretty historic because there was lots of Bronze-age pottery in the cave.

"But actually, the radiocarbon dating indicated that it was a teenage boy, and he had died in the 17th century so about 400 years ago. He was about 14 to 16 years old. We did a range of analyses on his bones and revealed an incredibly sad story, really, of a boy who appears to have hidden in the cave or taken shelter there. He may have been working on the mountain tending sheep, but his bones indicated that he'd suffered malnutrition repeatedly throughout his short life. This is what we find with caves that we find very unusual and different stories, often things that are very different to what's happening outside in the world, above ground."

While these caves are really for the experienced cavers, there are show caves which can be accessed by the public, such as the Aillwee Caves in Co Clare. "That's one of the oldest show caves in the country", explains Doyle. "That was found originally back in the 1950s by Jack McGann. His dog just got lost inside the cave when he was out walking. The dog went in, and he found that. It was kind of left like that for a while and then cavers went in and started exploring it in the 1970s and found out the extent of it.

From RTÉ Archives, Cathy Halloran reports for RTÉ News on the opening of the Great Stalactite Cave at Doolin, Co Clare in 2006

"Shortly after that, two local families actually bought the access to that, and they opened it up as a show cave in 1976 and they've developed it over the years. There's a farm shop, a wonderful birds-of-prey centre and woodland walks as well. The cave itself is fantastic, the guides are wonderfully trained and it's relatively easy to access, so it's a nice walk-in."

Another Burren cave to check out is Doolin Cave. "It's in the Burren limestone as well, but it's a very different kind of cave", says Doyle. "Again, that was modified to make it easy for people to go in. There's a spiral staircase you go down, but what the thing about this cave is when you walk along this passageway, suddenly it opens up into a large chamber and this magnificent stalactite is hanging from the ceiling. It's over seven meters long, it's white, and it's just so wonderful and unexpected. It's like a big chandelier hanging out the ceiling, but it's a naturally formed stalagmite that's been forming there for certainly hundreds of thousands of years."

Dowd recommends Dunmore Cave in Co Kilkenny. "It's an incredible site because it's one of few caves in that part of the country. We have reference to this cave from medieval manuscripts where they talk about a Viking massacre at Dunmore Cave. It's this huge black gaping opening on the ground surface and then you walk down a series of steps to get into these enormous chambers.

From RTÉ Radio 1's Morning Ireland in 2022, Dr Eamon Doyle on the discovery of fossil burrows older than dinosaurs in Co. Clare

"Maybe referencing the Viking attack, there were remains of 49 people discovered there in the 1970s, and they've been radiocarbon dated to the Viking period. So it's possible that these were the victims of a Viking massacre. There's also a possibility that it was actually a Viking burial ground because a lot of Viking artifacts were found in the cave, which you wouldn't expect if they had massacred the local population, and a very tall stalagmite there as well. So that's very impressive."

For those going north, there's Marble Arch Caves outside Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh. "That's a wonderful site", says Dowd. "You have an underground river there. So depending on the rainfall, it's possible for visitors to actually take a boat underground and travel on that underground waterway as well."

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