Derrynoose Lead Mine

Overview

A small 19th-century lead mine at Derrynoose, near Keady in south Armagh, part of the wider South Armagh-Monaghan lead mining district and now recorded chiefly through modern geological survey work rather than any detailed contemporary account.

History

Derrynoose lay within the South Armagh-Monaghan mining district, an area centred on the market town of Keady where the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland's Abandoned Mines database records 57 shafts and adits across the county, worked chiefly for lead alongside smaller neighbouring sites at Clay, Creggan, Carrickgallogy and College. The mine at Derrynoose itself comprised 13 shafts and a single adit, with at least one shaft reported to have reached a depth of 150 feet, and was abandoned by 1842. By the time the National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland was compiled in 1868, the parish's leadmines were already recorded simply as abandoned, alongside a medicinal spring as the parish's other notable mineral feature -- suggesting the mine had left little enough impression, only one generation after closure, to warrant more than a passing mention.

Workings

Thirteen shafts and one adit worked the site, at least one shaft reaching 150 feet in depth -- a modest scale of working consistent with the small, short-lived mining companies typical of the wider South Armagh-Monaghan district.

What remains

A 2014 BGS/NERC survey of closed mine waste sites in Northern Ireland recorded Derrynoose's spoil among sites downstream of which sediment lead, zinc, cadmium and other metal concentrations were assessed for contamination risk, placing it in a moderate hazard class relative to other former Armagh mine sites surveyed.

Spoil associated with the former shafts and adit, assessed in a 2014 national survey of abandoned mine waste in Northern Ireland.

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.

Recorded claims

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

• The Derrynoose Lead Mine comprised 13 shafts and one adit, with at least one shaft reported to have reached a depth of 150 feet, and was abandoned by 1842. ¹
• Derrynoose lay within the South Armagh-Monaghan mining district, centred on Keady, where the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland's Abandoned Mines database records 57 shafts and adits across County Armagh worked chiefly for lead. ¹
• The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland (1868) records the parish's leadmines as already abandoned by that date. ²
• A 2014 BGS/NERC inventory of closed mine waste facilities in Northern Ireland assessed sediment downstream of the Derrynoose site for metal contamination (lead, zinc, cadmium, chromium, nickel), placing it in hazard class II relative to other surveyed Armagh mine sites. ³

Sources

1. (primary) Base metals, mineral resources, Northern Ireland — British Geological Survey (Earthwise)
2. (primary) Derrynoose (National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland, 1868) — GENUKI
3. (primary) Inventory of closed mine waste facilities in Northern Ireland — British Geological Survey / NERC (Report CR/14/031)

Record created: 30 August 2026 · Last researched: 30 August 2026