Creggan Silver-Lead Mines

Overview

A small silver-lead mine in the South Armagh hills, opened in 1852 amid a wave of post-Famine mining speculation and worked on and off for less than two decades by a succession of Cornish-run companies before liquidation in 1869 — its ore carted to the port of Dundalk for shipment to smelters on the Dee, and its own history so tangled up with that port's name in the official mineral statistics that historians only pieced it back together over a century later.

History

The Creggan deposit, in the townland of Cregganduff just under a kilometre north-east of Crossmaglen, had been anticipated as early as 1830, when David Brewster's Edinburgh Encyclopaedia recorded that lead was 'supposed to exist' in the parish. Local tradition, recorded much later in an 1901 newspaper interview with former mineworker Terence McParland, credits the actual discovery to a roadman named Murphy, who mentioned the presence of lead at Creggan to miners drinking at a public house near the nearby Tullydonnell copper trial. Mining began around 1852 under Captain Henry Conn, a former Royal Navy officer turned Cornish arsenic manufacturer, and his son William — part of a wider rush of prospecting and mine promotion that followed the Great Famine, as investors sought to capitalise on rising Irish mineral prices. Early workings were shallow, centred on what became known as McPartland's Shaft, and by 1856 the mine had already produced a silver nugget weighing some 15 hundredweight — reported as the largest ever raised from an Irish mine and shipped via Dundalk to a London exhibition. Financial pressure on Conn's Cornish arsenic business, triggered by a price war with rival producers, appears to have forced him to sell his Irish interests, and the mine passed to an English concern, the Dundalk Silver-Lead Mining Company, which became a limited liability company in 1859 and installed the Cornishman Samuel Bailey as its resident mine captain — a position he held for the rest of the mine's working life. Under Bailey the mine was developed in earnest, sinking a new vertical engine shaft reportedly to some 500ft with levels driven at regular intervals, and installing, over its lifetime, two steam engines: a 36-inch Cornish pumping engine and a 16-inch winding engine. The company was reconstituted again in 1863 as the Dundalk Silver Lead and Copper Mining Company, adding the nearby, unproductive Tullydonnell copper trial to its holdings and negotiating a new 21-year lease. Labour relations were not always smooth: in February 1864 a gang of local men, unhappy at the tribute rates Bailey was offering, dragged a strikebreaking miner from his bed at night and beat him, in a case that went to trial at Armagh but ended in acquittal after the local community closed ranks around the accused. Despite periodic reports of promising ore and, in 1867, a call on shareholders to fund further development, the company's finances never recovered, and the board voted to wind up voluntarily in November 1869; the mine's equipment, including both steam engines and its ore-crushing rolls, was sold at auction in Glasgow in February 1870 for the low upset price of £600. Bailey returned to Cornwall, later managing mines near his native Falmouth until his death in 1879. Total recorded production across the mine's working life, according to the official Mineral Statistics, came to only 293.5 tons of ore, yielding 209.4 tons of lead and 300 ounces of silver — a strikingly small return for a mine that had sunk a 150m-deep shaft and installed costly steam machinery, and one that a 2012 academic study of the mine's history suggests likely understates real production, since the official returns are known to have been incomplete and were, for years, muddled together in the records under the name of the port the ore was shipped from, Dundalk, rather than the mine's own name. A brief attempt was made to rework the ground in 1910-11 by the agency of a Meath copper-mining concern, after a new lode was found while deepening a farm well near the old workings; a handful of men sank a new shaft and drove two short adits, but no worthwhile ore was found and the attempt was abandoned within the year. A 1957 geophysical survey of the whole district's disused lead mines concluded that none of them, Creggan included, held lead in commercially workable quantities.

Geology

Creggan lies within the Longford-Down Inlier, a belt of Ordovician and Silurian rocks that extends north-eastward into Scotland's Southern Uplands, hosting the same broad style of lead-zinc mineralisation as the historic Wanlockhead-Leadhills orefield across the Irish Sea. The Creggan lode itself, hosted in Silurian greywackes, sandstones and shales of the Magoney Bridge Formation, strikes unusually NNE rather than the NNW typical of the wider district, dipping steeply, and carried galena and sphalerite in a gangue of quartz and baryte. A 2012 re-examination of the geology concluded that the district's ore shoots were typically confined to the coarser 'grit' beds within the folded host rocks, giving deposits with restricted lateral extent but considerable vertical extent — a geometry that, combined with the lack of the closely spaced, intersecting veins that made Wanlockhead genuinely productive, likely explains why Creggan and its neighbouring mines never achieved commercially viable production despite substantial capital investment.

Workings

Underground workings were developed from at least two shafts — the shallower, earlier McPartland's Shaft and a later, deeper vertical engine shaft reported at around 500ft with levels driven at roughly 15-fathom intervals — worked on the Cornish system of tribute and tutwork by miners under Captain Samuel Bailey. Ore was dressed at the surface using a Cornish rolls crusher before being carted by road to the port of Dundalk, around eleven miles away, for shipment to lead smelters on the River Dee near Chester.

Closure

The Dundalk Silver Lead and Copper Mining Company voted to wind up voluntarily in November 1869, and its machinery and equipment were sold at auction in Glasgow in February 1870. A further attempt to rework the ground in 1910-11 found no workable ore, and a 1957 geophysical survey concluded no commercially viable lead remained in any of the district's disused mines.

What remains

A 1995 shaft-capping and geophysical survey programme, undertaken on health and safety grounds, capped the mine's remaining open shafts. Almost nothing of the mine's substantial surface plant survives above ground today: the site was returned to farmland after closure, its Cornish engine house — used for stone in the 1930s — reduced to bare foundations, and even the spoil heaps largely removed. The field name 'Mine Hill' is the only obvious surface clue that Creggan was ever a site of industry.

Little survives above ground: capped shaft covers, occasional fragments of baryte gangue in the old courtyard of the former mine office (itself later a farmhouse), and the field name 'Mine Hill' are essentially all that remain visible; a 2012 site survey found no trace of the former engine house's footprint.

Abandoned workings can be dangerous — unstable ground, uncapped shafts, flooding and bad air are common even where a site looks safe from the surface. This entry describes history and general location only; it is not an access guide.

The mine's shafts were capped in 1995 and the site is farmland — this entry describes history and general location only, not an access guide.

Recorded claims

Individual factual claims, each attached to the source(s) that support it below. Where sources disagree, both are kept.

• Lead had been anticipated at Creggan since at least 1830; mining began around 1852 under Captain Henry Conn, a former Royal Navy officer and Cornish arsenic manufacturer, and his son William, following a tip-off from a local roadman. ¹
• In 1856 the mine produced a silver nugget weighing around 15 hundredweight, reported at the time as the largest ever raised from an Irish mine, shipped via Dundalk to a London exhibition. ¹
• The mine passed to the Dundalk Silver-Lead Mining Company (limited liability from 1859) and then the Dundalk Silver Lead and Copper Mining Company (from 1863), with Cornishman Samuel Bailey as resident mine captain throughout, sinking a new engine shaft reported at around 500ft with two steam engines installed. ¹
• Official Mineral Statistics record total production of 293.5 tons of ore, 209.4 tons of lead and 300oz of silver across the mine's working life; the company voluntarily wound up in November 1869 and its machinery was auctioned in Glasgow in February 1870. ¹
• Creggan lies within the Longford-Down Inlier at grid reference H 938 170, among several locally significant multi-shaft lead-zinc workings in the South Armagh-Monaghan mining district including Derrynoose, Clay and Carrickgallogy. ²
• A brief attempt to rework the mine for lead and baryte in 1910-11, prompted by a new lode found while deepening a farm well, found no workable ore and was abandoned within the year; a 1957 geophysical survey concluded none of the district's disused lead mines held commercially viable ore. ¹

Sources

1. (secondary) Creggan and the History of the Silver-Lead Mines of the Marches of Armagh and Monaghan — Journal of the Mining Heritage Trust of Ireland (Schwartz & Critchley, 2012)
2. (primary) Base metals, mineral resources, Northern Ireland — British Geological Survey (Earthwise)

Record created: 26 August 2026 · Last researched: 26 August 2026