Noon's Hole ( Irish grid ref H12684431) lies about 5 km northwest of the centre of

Boho Boho may refer to: Geography * Boho, County Fermanagh, a village and parish in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland ** Boho Caves, a cave system in Boho * Boho, North Sumatra, a village on the island of Samosir, Indonesia Other uses * Boho, short fo ...

, in the

townland A townland ( ga, baile fearainn; Ulster-Scots: ''toonlann'') is a small geographical division of land, historically and currently used in Ireland and in the Western Isles in Scotland, typically covering . The townland system is of Gaelic orig ...

of Old Barr in the parish of Devenish,

County Fermanagh County Fermanagh ( ; ) is one of the thirty-two counties of Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the six counties of Northern Ireland. The county covers an area of 1,691 km2 (653 sq mi) and has a population of 61,805 ...

, close to the border with Boho parish. The cave is under part of the escarpment on the east side of the Glenade Sandstone uplands. At , this pothole was thought to have the deepest shaft in Ireland, but this honour was passed to the nearby

Reyfad Pot Reyfad () is a townland in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. It lies in the land division of Old Barr, in the civil parish of Boho. The townland has previously been called Rayfadd - 1659, Raffada (Magheryboy) - 1672 and Ráith Fada "long fo ...

, which contains an entrance shaft of . The continuation of the cave system (incorporating the Afternoon Series and High Noon's) contains of passage, and it connects to the resurgence at Arch Cave through three cave dives, making this system the 8th deepest in Ireland, at . Noon's Hole was previously called "Sumera", meaning "abyss", but gained notoriety and a new name in the 1820s, following the notorious murder of Dominick Noone, whose body was thrown into the cave.

Ordnance Survey Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of 1745. There was a ...

maps still use both names.

Exploration

A ''Sumera'' is a bottomless pit, and locals initially treated Noon's Hole as a supernatural area, viewing it with suspicion and fear. However, in August 1895, the French cave explorer

Édouard-Alfred Martel Édouard-Alfred Martel (1 July 1859, Pontoise, Val-d'Oise – 3 June 1938, Montbrison), the 'father of modern speleology', was a world pioneer of cave exploration, study, and documentation. Martel explored thousands of caves in his native Franc ...

explored the cave for the first time, descending to . It was not until 1912 that a group called the Yorkshire Ramblers reached the bottom. Not discouraged by their equipment not having arrived from England, they made the descent of the complex shaft using a long rope ladder built from materials purchased from Fermanagh ships chandlers and timber merchants, hauling it up and down from the surface when the explorers found ledges to stand on. All they found at the bottom was a short passage leading to a sump. In January 1970 a group from the

University of Leeds , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

Speleological Association investigated the parallel shafts, and found that one led into of passages they named the After-Noon Series. In the meanwhile, cave divers had been pushing in Arch Cave from which the water from Noon's Hole resurges. In 1972

Martyn Farr Martyn Farr (born Crickhowell, Wales, March 3, 1951) is a leading exploratory cave diver and caver, known for his record-breaking cave dives and the exploration of many miles of previously undiscovered underground passages (e.g. in Ogof y Daren C ...

and Roger Solari passed an sump into a long canal, and then a sump into a major extension which extended into the mountain for a further to a third sump. The pair returned in 1973, and after a dive they emerged into the After-Noon series of Noon's Hole. Easter 1975 a party followed a draught in the After-Noon series through a rocky crawl, to break out into a mile of new passage which included a streamway, the terminal sump of which corresponded to a sump with the main water flow in Arch II cave. This was named the High Noon Series. In 1984, a group managed to find a dry connection between High Noon and Arch II cave to create the 'finest sporting trip in County Fermanagh'.

Dominick Noone

Dominick Noone was originally from the Ballinamore area in the east of

County Leitrim County Leitrim ( ; gle, Contae Liatroma) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Connacht and is part of the Northern and Western Region. It is named after the village of Leitrim. Leitrim County Council is the local authority for the ...

. Whilst in

Derrygonnelly Derrygonnelly () is a small village and townland in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. Near Lower Lough Erne, the village was home to 680 people at the 2011 Census This article contains quotations from this source, which is available under th ...

, he became a member of an illegal

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

organisation known as the

Ribbonmen Ribbonism, whose supporters were usually called Ribbonmen, was a 19th-century popular movement of poor Catholics in Ireland. The movement was also known as Ribandism. The Ribbonmen were active against landlords and their agents, and opposed "Or ...

, an agrarian reform group, but subsequently became an informer for the British Crown. It was on his evidence in 1826 that a number of fellow members were '

transported ''Transported'' is an Australian convict melodrama film directed by W. J. Lincoln. It is considered a lost film. Plot In England, Jessie Grey is about to marry Leonard Lincoln but the evil Harold Hawk tries to force her to marry him and she w ...

' to Australia. Despite police protection, he was invited to a wedding party, but then kidnapped and murdered and his body thrown down into the depths of the Sumera. The authorities suspected that his body lay in the shaft, and a man named Cavanagh from Castlecoole, a

on the outskirts of

Enniskillen Enniskillen ( , from ga, Inis Ceithleann , ' Ceithlenn's island') is the largest town in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. It is in the middle of the county, between the Upper and Lower sections of Lough Erne. It had a population of 13,823 a ...

, accepted a substantial reward to descend the shaft in a rope and creel. Noone's body was found at a depth of , and retrieved. The body was then carried to a chapel for a wake but local people blocked the doorway preventing entrance. The murderers of Noone were never caught despite the offer of a £100 award. In 1879 a long ballad was composed about the event. The penultimate verse goes:

''Within the mountain nature made,''
''A deep and dismal cave,''
''That suited well the murderers said,''
''To be a traitor's grave,''
''They flung the lifeless body below -''
''A groan they thought it gave.''

Exploration

Dominick Noone

See also

Notes

Further reading