Muckross Mine, Killarney

Source- the Internet

Killarney is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Ireland.  It`s located in the Southern-Western part of the Emerald Island, and is well known for its beautiful lakes and the Ring of Kerry. I`ve been there a few times, and I always enjoy it very much.
The last time I was there was about a month ago. Together with Klaudia, following a fellow collector`s suggestion, we visited the old Muckross Copper Mine, which is at a lakeside.
We had studied the specimens that can be found there on Mindat.org, and we knew we were looking for some green and pink stuff ;)
When we got there, we couldn`t find the path, which was clearly marked on a map and got lost in the forest. Well, not lost, but we had to go back a bit, as the path we followed, surrounded with dense forest, just finished and there was no way we could go any further. On our way back we spotted the right path and then we quickly got the the mine.
The mine is fenced but you can jump the fence over and get down to the hole. The hole is quite deep and you have to be careful not to twist your ankle or worse- break your leg! But what wouldn`t you do for a few pieces of cool pink and green stuff? ;)
The green stones were scattered around and you don`t even need to dig there. We also found a few lovely pink erythrite samples. Here they are:

My favourite Erythrite sample from the Muckross Mine

Klaudia found a tiny little beauty that we were unsure of, so I asked the folks on Mindat and they said it`s definitely gypsum:

Photo taken with my phone

Photo from Mindat.org- devilline

And then, of course, we found very many green buddies. The thing is that they didn`t really look like the devilline photo from Mindat.org, so I posted it on a forum there and was told to run a few tests in order to find out what they really are. There were a few theories.
Yesterday I visited one of the lecturers at UCC and I had my samples checked under the microscope.

This one is most likely langite with posnjakite+ gypsum

That one is brochantite, langite (?) and chalcopyrite

All samples from the mine

I still don`t have devilline, and this is why I will most likely go back to Muckross. This time I will take some insect repellant, as the midges are really P in the A!

All photos taken by Marina Gonzales Bardon, unless marked otherwise.


EDIT: I`ve just received a photo of a posnjakite crystal from one of my samples (about 0.2 mm)

Posnjakite. Microscope photo.