What is recorded here

In 1881, Robert J. Ussher found the hidden chamber in Ballynamintra Middle after prying through a wall of animal bones and household waste that had sealed the entrance for nearly a thousand years. Inside the T-shaped limestone cavity, he recovered lignite bracelets, bone combs, and spindle whorls, proving the space served domestic life before someone deliberately buried it beneath the debris of daily existence. The cave still keeps that paradox, preserving ordinary human tools within a chamber built to erase them from memory.

Two caves are marked close together on the 1840 ed. of the OS 6-inch map, situated c. 50m from the SW bank of the NW-SE River Douglas, and adjacent to a parallel mill-race. Smith (1746, 329-30) descibes finding a human scull in one of these caves called Uaimh na mort - the cave of the dead. Smith, C. (1746) The history of the town and county of Waterford. W. Wilson. Dublin. Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 11 August, 2011

Coolnanav Cave is likely a karstic limestone cave, formed by the dissolution of soluble rock, typical of the region's geology. The 18th-century reference to a human skeleton suggests possible prehistoric or historic-period human activity or burial within the cave.

The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.