Mining firm strikes gold in Co Armagh
Prospectors who discovered what is believed to be the biggest untapped gold mine in Ireland or Britain have struck lucky again, they said today.
The exploration company which uncovered the precious metal outside a small village in the Republic of Ireland last year said they have found a larger, higher grade seam several miles over the border in south Armagh.
Share prices in Conroy Diamonds and Gold rocketed after it formally announced the value of the massive deposits at Clay Lake, near Keady, to the London Stock Exchange.
Professor Richard Conroy, the firm’s chairman and a former Irish senator, said there was a lot of work ahead but the mine could be worth hundreds of millions of euro.
“We’re very excited about this, we’re delighted with it. We’ve felt for a long time that there must be something big there,” he said.
Conroy began moving into the North after striking gold in the rural, rolling hills outside Clontibret, Co Monaghan, where it has begun a feasibility study, which could allow mining to begin within two years.
The deposits there were valued last July at up to €570m, but gold prices have soared since then, as it traditionally does in times of economic uncertainty.
Further tests along the border led the exploration company to an area near former lead mines around Derrynoose in the notorious republican heartland, known as Bandit Country during the Troubles.
That a local farmer had discovered a large gold nugget near Clay Lake in the 1980s, which now lies in the Ulster Museum, made the prospectors even more excited and determined.
“By going a bit further north we started to come across quite a bit of gold, but nothing anywhere near as big as what we have come across now in Clay Lake,” said Prof Conroy.
“Clontibret is quite large and there’s more to come, but this is a larger area and, from what we’ve seen, the levels here are about twice of what we discovered in Clontibret.”
The company said there would be a couple of years of slow and painstaking work before it can carry out an economic viability study on the south Armagh mine.
Geologists will now drill down to the bedrock, and see what grades of gold they discover along the seam.
“Then we will get very exact indications of how rich it is,” said Prof. Conroy.
“Until we’ve done the work, like we did at Clontibret, we can’t make exact forecasts but one couldn’t have asked for better at this stage.
“It’s far too early to say how much it will be worth, but on present evidence it is certainly in the same bracket as Clontibret and perhaps more.”
Shares in the exploration company were up by more than 40% after the formal announcement this morning.
