High up on the verdant foldings of the Slieveardagh plateau are two things to engage anyone’s attention: a man and a mine.
The man Is Michael Ivers; the mine is Earlshill. the one he planned and which he now operates.
This mine is situated alongside the old rugged road that strikes north-east from the Ballynonty valley. To the traveller, this road seems to have no other object but to surmount the numerous high peaks of this range of hills and give to him an exquisite view of a lovely series of quiet, green valleys close by; the great majestic plains of Tipperary at one side, far below, Kilkenny, in all its loveliness, stretching away to the east. Even from a sight-seeing point of view this place is well worth a visit.
On this Earlshill syncline several mining operations were in existence during the past two hundred years with the result that the seam has been worked and all the coal extricated from the outcrop to a depth of several hundred feet, The Mining Company of Ireland brought their main drainage adits along the strike of this coal from Ballynonty. This enabled them to get coal at a deeper level than was done hitherto by private mining concerns
Mr. William Young was the last surviving link of real English exploitation in this area. In 1920 we had a new Slieveardagh Company in the field but it was an abortive one. It was this attempt that gave one of our Irish banks its first financial interest in coal mining In Tipperary.
Local miners, however then tried in vain to keep this mine working. Lack of powder forced them out of It. A long period of gloom reigned in mining circles in Slieveardagh after this.
Hopes ran high when in 1941, the nucleus of the Present State sponsored company, Mianrai Teoranta, was formed. ‘They started operations in Ballynonty and later at Lickfinn. They continued during the war years but found both projects uneconomic and abandoned in favour of the Copper Basin (Clashduff) where the State mine now is.
CHIEF WEAPON—DETERMINATION
It was in 1949, Ivers and eight other miners all with empty pockets started the present drifts. Their chief weapons were: a determination to achieve something, and a keen coal sense. They opened up an old shallow drift which was packed with slate and grit and began their long drive for the coal face. They gathered tools of every sort and set up gear of the most primitive kind. They gritted their teeth as they hewed the hard two ‘thousand ‘ feet of rock that separated ‘them from the coal face. They begged and borrowered powder when their arms failed them and slowly but surely they tunneled into that mysterious region where lay the precious treasure. It seems incredible that such a feat could be performed by men with nothing more than a will to succeed