Slate Quarries, Ahenny
Ahenny Slate Quarries, County Tipperary
Irish Landscape photography : Nigel borrington
Slate Quarries, Ahenny County Tipperary
The now disused slate quarry at Ahenny County Tipperary was quarried from the 14th Century onwards. Stone from this site was used in the building of Kell Priory in Kells and Ornmonde Castle in Carrick on Suir. The quarry now hosts an outdoor gallery of sculptures.
Located to the south of the village, the Victorian Slate Quarries is an area of both local and international history. Quarrying in the slate quarries of Tullahought were predominant during the reign of Queen Victoria. A large community was built up around the area which covers land in both Kilkenny and Tipperary. Tullahought shares its association with the quarries with the south Tipperary village of Ahenny, which claims the larger of the 3 lakes created by the quarrying of slate in the area.
In the mid 90’s, a yearly festival known as the “Slate Quarries Festival”. The first festival was marked with the creation of stunning works of art which were made entirely out of slate. The art work included the Miners Egg, The Weir, the Dinosaur and most notably, Noah’s arc which sat at the cliff edge over looking the lake.
The most notable building attributed to have the quarries slate is the Palace of Westminster in London (UK House of Parliament).
Gallery
Kilkenny Slate Quarries
All images using a Sigma SD15, 15-30mm f3.5-4.5 lens, iso 100
Victorian Slate quarries, County Kilkenny
Landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
I can remember the first time I came across the Slate quarries near Windgap, County Kilkenny, there are about four or five of these sites in the area all of the now disused and flooded, How long they have existed varies but all of them go back to the Victorian period.
The quarry in these images is located near Ahenny, Co.Kilkenny and the reason I find it more interesting than the others is that it still has remains of some cottages that the workers would have lived in during the period that the quarry was in operation.
Quarry lake
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I don’t know how deep the lake is, I have been swimming in it many times and it feels deep very deep, the miners would have had to blast most of the slate out and the sides of the lake go strait down below the water. If you swim underneath the water and down the sides a little you still cannot see the bottom of the quarry, many would feel a little unhappy swimming here.
Workers Cottage’s
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There are some ten cottages in this row, its just around the corner from the lake, which when the quarry was in operation would have been a very dangerous location, with blasting and all the machinery in very close proximity to the cottages it cannot have been great living condition. This as-well the fact that the location is miles away from any village, the conditions for the worker must have been very poor.
The Quarries Today
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Today these quarries have become a wildlife and natural reserve, slate lies everywhere but this has provided a haven for plant life and wildlife, Herons hunt in the rive below the quarry and the lake is full of fish. The area covers about 2 square miles.
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When some of the local streams run dry in the summer you can see jut how much slate was left in the area after the mining finished, it covers the entire area.
I will come back to these quarries over the next weeks as they are wonderful places to post about and I love being around these quarries very much.
Nigel Borrington 
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