Genoa and Florence, 1289
The Italian merchants
In 1289 merchants from the Italian city-states of Genoa and Florence arrived in Tipperary under licence from the English crown to work silver deposits in the Silvermines hills. They operated here until 1303 - fourteen years of medieval extraction at the western edge of Europe, by men who had come further than almost anyone else in Ireland at the time. The silver they found was real. The venture made money. And then they left, and the hills went quiet for a generation.
Largest base metal mine in Europe
The Mogul Mine
The Mogul of Ireland Ltd opened its mine at Garryard, Silvermines, on 11 September 1968 - three marquees, 600 guests, Taoiseach Jack Lynch with the ribbon. At peak it processed 3,000 tonnes of ore per day, employed over 500 people, and was the largest base metal mine in Europe. Ten million tonnes of lead and zinc ore came out of this hill before the resource ran down and prices fell. The underground operation closed in July 1982. The last mine on the site - the Macgobar baryte operation - ran until 1993. Then it was over.
148 acres of aftermath
The tailings pond
The Gortmore tailings management facility - where Mogul deposited the crushed and processed rock - covered 148 acres of the valley floor. After mining ended it became a slow-motion environmental problem: zinc and lead leaching into watercourses, cattle poisoning incidents, farm damage claims, years of arguments about who was responsible. The state allocated €10.6m for rehabilitation in 2005. The pond is now capped. Five historic mine structures were preserved. The Kilmastulla River runs cleaner than it has in decades. What the hill gave out in ore, it extracted again in time and money.