Treasure trove provides insight into life in West Cork copper mine
Jer Looney, John Joseph O'Sullivan, Ann McNally, Niall O'Sullivan, and Tagdh O'Sullivan, chairman of the Allihies Copper Mine Museum Committee, with the restored books at the museum. Picture: Anne Marie Cronin Photography
A priceless treasure trove of books and documents providing a unique window of what life was like at a West Cork copper mine from the 18th to 19th centuries have been restored.
The 'cost books' and ledgers from the mine in Allihies and an original bible from a former Methodist Church have been restored thanks to a grant from The Heritage Council.
They have now gone on public display at the Copper Mine Museum, which is housed in the former church.
Tadhg O'Sullivan, chairman of the Allihies Copper Mine Museum Committee, said the cost books and ledgers were discovered in 1998 in the attic of a house in England, owned by the Puxley family. They set up the copper mines which in the mid-1800s employed around 1,600 people.
The books were presented to the Beara Historical Society soon after. They were later transferred to the custodianship of the Copper Mine Museum, which opened in 2006.
“The original bible was presented to us by the Church of Ireland congregation in Drimoleague in 2008,” Mr O'Sullivan said. “The books and ledgers cover a period from when the mines opened in Allihies in 1812 up to around 1848.”
He said The Heritage Council very kindly provided grant aid to the museum to get conservation work carried out on the leather-bound books and for the past year, they have been under the care of paper conservator, Paul Curtis, who works at the Book Bindery at Muckross House, Killarney.
The work is now complete and the books are back at the Copper Mine Museum in Allihies. This is the second piece of conservation work Paul Curtis has carried out for the museum during the past few years.
“Three years ago the Heritage Council also funded conservation work on the Puxley Papers, a collection of papers diaries legal documents and photos which Patrick Puxley presented to the Copper Mine Museum in 2016,” Mr O'Sullivan said.
He said this work is also complete and the museum is working on plans to display these papers to the public over the next number of months.
“They date from the mid-1700s and are a priceless treasure trove of documents which gives us a window into life through the 18th and 19th centuries in the Allihies area,” Mr O'Sullivan said.
