Britain and Ireland: History: Survey of Pen Park Hole Gloucestershire, by Captain Grenville Collins, September 1682. First published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 143, 1683.

Édouard Martel (1859-1938) visited, and extended several of the best-known British and Irish caves in 1895, and this provided impetus for exploration, first in England and then in Ireland. The Yorkshire Ramblers’ Club (YRC), founded in 1892, was thus activated by Martel’s successful descent of Gaping Gill Main Shaft (110 m) and made a second descent the following year. It continued with the exploration of most of the open shafts of the Three Peaks area of the Northern Pennines each year, until war broke out in 1914. Harold Brodrick (1875-1946) led the YRC to follow in Martel’s footsteps with explorations in County Fermanagh, from 1907. They started with the Boho block, Noon’s Hole, Arch Cave (Ooboraghan) and Pollanafrin, and then moved south to the Marble Arch area in 1908. E.A.Baker, and members of the YRC, started to examine the County Clare limestone area in 1911, but it was the University of Bristol Speleological Society that made major discoveries from 1948 to 1970 (Tratman, 1969). Jack Coleman (191471) was at the forefront of Irish cave exploration for many years and wrote what is still the only text on the caves of the whole of Ireland (Coleman, 1965).