Goldrush in Cloonacool as exploration mining gets underway

Canadian company Playfair Mining has reported that core drilling is in progress at a site in the Ox Mountains located at Cloonacool.

The area is an unexplored section of a geological structure that hosts commercial gold deposits and prospects. The project came about after 2 clusters of gold bearing rock ( 9.68 g/ t Au.) where found 11km apart.

Bowpark Exploration Ltd is a private Irish company formed by veteran exploration geologists Andy Bowden ( 67) and Rick Parker ( 66) in 2011. Both men have over 40 years of experience in exploration. Playfair mining is a Canadian company that will be backing the efforts of Bowpark Exploration Ltd. The first phase of drilling of 2,500 metres is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

Donald Moore, CEO of Playfair mining said: “The exploration project is in its early stage. It will be a year of two before we know anything and we don’t want to raise expectations too soon. But we are thrilled to be backing the two men. The Mining community in Ireland is still very young and the project has attracted us as we are the first ever guys in history to drill here. It is a learning experience and we are hoping to proceed to find core and if there is an indication that there is enough gold to justify continuing the system.”

We spoke to one local man who didn’t want to be named and he said the machine is active all night and there is light on it. He informed us that some locals didn’t know what’s happening and that they thought the drilling was to do with fracking.

Mr. Moore said: “Rick is very mindful of local community and I believe that it has been well received having support both locally and internationally. We work at times for 24 hours and other times for 12 hours but that is down to our man power. The location we are working on is isolated and the equipment used is environmentally friendly and it is a quiet machine.”

The exploration of the site can take anything up to a year before they know if they will be able to continue on to the next phase.

Looking at the future, Mr. Moore added that if they are successful in the site they local community will reap a number of benefits from it.

“It can be successful for everyone; mining will bring jobs with it. Having been born into a mining community myself for everyone job in a mine, it adds another 3- 5 indirect jobs in the community so it could provide a good economic basis here.

“We have some local Irish guys working here at the minute and