Gold Rush in Ireland

A million ounces of gold has been reported buried under the heart of the peaceful village of Clontibret in the Emerald Island. Not many people have heard of the village of Clontibret, nestled in the green rolling hills of County Monaghan but this is about to change.

Noted for being one of the few places to repel the forces of Elizabeth I during the conquest of Ireland in the 16th century, Clontibret is soon going to become the Klondike of Ireland with the biggest gold strike in the British Isles.

An exploration and mining company based in Dublin, Ireland, has just issued a formal statement to the London Stock Exchange that an area just outside the village has more than 1 million ounces of gold. The exploration company has estimated that the gold deposits could be worth up to £450 million at today’s gold price.

The company's Chairman in a statement recently, said: "There's never been a gold mine anywhere near this size in Ireland and the UK."

He went on, "The Company's exploration programme in Ireland is focussed on the Longford-Down Massif. The Company at an early stage recognized the significant gold potential of the Massif. It is engaged in active exploration there which has already led to the discovery of a series of gold targets along a 30 mile (50km) strike length stretching from County Armagh across to Counties Monaghan and Cavan."

"At the most advanced of these targets, Clontibret in County Monaghan, a mineral resource of over 1 million ounces of gold (Indicated 440,000 ounces, Inferred 590,000 ounces) has been estimated for an area representing less than 20 per cent of the target. Drilling has commenced in the remaining 80 per cent of the Clontibret target anomaly, which is expected to further increase this resource. This is the largest gold resource reported to date in Ireland or the UK."

The rising price of gold in recent years recently impelled the Cononish mine, near the village of Tyndrum in Scotland, to be reopen after being idle for years. But, in a study of the economic viability of mining the gold, stated that the deposits in Monaghan, a historically deprived border region, were at least four times the amount in the Scottish mine. "We know there is a lot of gold in the area, but we still have to determine how economic it is going to be to mine it," the Director said.

It has been estimated that further excavation could increase the existing indicated resources of 440,000 ounces and additional inferred resource of 590,000 ounces and with the price of gold rising, that is going to be a lot of money by anyone’s standards.

So it is true, even in Ireland to say, “There is gold in them there hills!”