Death threats and abuse under the surface of Tyrone goldmine row

Times

12-07-2025

It is the richest hill in Ireland and the battleground for a high-stakes stand-off that has split loyalties, sparked death threats and frustrated multimillion-dollar investors. Land beneath Crockanboy, in the Sperrin Mountains in Co Tyrone, holds beyond 100 tonnes of high-grade gold along with 48 tonnes of silver and at least 15,000 tonnes of copper — all waiting to be mined.
More than $20 billion worth of metals is thought to be locked away in the dark metamorphic rock 12 miles northeast of Omagh.
Forty years on from initial development, not a single gram of its treasure has reached the market. Those who oppose the mine are confident it will stay that way, while its backers are sure they will win approval to dig.
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For now, the mineral exploration firm Dalradian Gold has to bide its time but the extended planning process is costing the company $1.6 million a month.
Brian Kelly, the managing director, said an exceptional opportunity awaited. Speaking at the entrance to the access tunnel, he said: 'We could be one of the most profitable mines in Europe. There is metal in there that can have high-end use for medical devices, spacecraft, tellurium used in solar power cells, and of course jewellery with real cultural significance.'
Inside the tunnel he points to part of an exposed vein that seeps a blue-green copper residue and glistens with fool's gold, a pyrite that points to the presence of the real thing.
Another vein of metal, a 1.2m-wide band, has a grade of 78g of gold per tonne, meaning that a tea chest-sized piece of rock would contain about £6,300 worth of the precious metal. Kelly said many mines worldwide were working with 'somewhere between 0.5 and 1 gram per tonne, so what we have here is volume, this is high grade'.
Work at the Curraghinalt site began in the 1980s, with the first miners following a gold-bearing vein for 1,000m. The Troubles got in the way, however, and restrictions over detonators made it impractical to continue. When Dalradian, a Canadian company, took over exploration in 2009 it added another 1,000m to the tunnels, thrusting much deeper into the hill and exposing yet more of the riches.
For all the bounty inside Crockanboy, nothing can change the fact that the Sperrins is an area of outstanding natural beauty — almost guaranteeing that Dalradian's 2017 application to dig would not be universally welcomed.
Scrutiny of its methods followed and a planning inquiry that began in January stalled after three days over procedural failures.
Fidelma O'Kane, who grew up in the mountains, has spent years battling what she calls a 'toxic industry', campaigning with the Save Our Sperrins group to get shot of the mine.
She said: 'This is all about greed and profit for a Canadian company. You can be sure that if that mine goes ahead the gold will go to Canada. There might be short-term jobs here but this is a fly-in, fly-out industry.'
O'Kane argues that if the company got its way then the landscape would suffer. Lorries would fill country roads and a planned waste dump would poison the ecosystem, inflicting suffering on protected species such as otters, salmon and freshwater pearl mussels, still found in the rivers west of Lough Neagh.
Dalradian insists it has gone above and beyond, that its bespoke processes would mean minimal and managed waste, sensitive construction and the discharge of treated, pure water only. It says disturbed bogs would be restored, no flora or fauna would suffer and that a purpose-built road would keep lorries out of the way.
O'Kane will 'not believe a word' from Dalradian and says the company will win over only some locals. 'It's all marketing talk and greenwashing,' she said. 'I surveyed my neighbours, and 95 per cent are against this mine. We know what's right and we will fight for it.'
O'Kane's view clashes with that of Gerry Kelly of the Silent Majority group, which supports the mine. With no personal interest in the development, he said most wanted work to begin.
'From my back door I can go out and count seven quarries and nobody complains,' he said. 'They're doing the same thing, they're extracting rock.
'We had initial concerns but they have been addressed. This area has been deprived for years and I would say the figures are the other way around, that 95 per cent of people want this mine to go ahead.'
Peter McKenna, a local man and Dalradian's community relations manager, said it was ironic that he had family members who had relocated to Australia to work in mines that helped power the nation's economy.
He said that over the years the company had hosted roughly 2,000 visits to the access tunnel. 'In some cases people were coming along to see what they could find out to use against us,' McKenna said. 'The needle moved with every one of them. Local people could see what we were doing and the value it can bring.'
Those opposed to the mine won support when it emerged in 2017 that cyanide was to be used in gold extraction, a headline-grabber that caused Dalradian to rework its plans and rule out use of the poison at the site. By then Save Our Sperrins had stacked up some serious support. It claims it has gathered 50,000 objections.
Dalradian has said that the opposition is shortsighted, that the project offers 1,000 jobs, average wages of £45,000, that it is committed to net-zero carbon emissions, that most work takes place underground, that it will supply essential metals for renewables technology and hand £2.5 billion to the UK Treasury.
It said it planned to make use of one of Tyrone's strengths: the fact that 40 per cent of the world's crushing and screening equipment, used extensively in mining, is designed and manufactured there.
If progress is being made, it is happening at a snail's pace. Sixteen years after US investors became involved via Dalradian, some must wonder whether they will ever see Tyrone gold. In a warning letter sent in May to Stormont's executive office, four American congressmen expressed their concern over delays.
Kelly said: 'When we entered into this thing, it was going to be a 30-week planning application. We're somewhere in the region of 400 weeks in. We're all for public engagement, we're all for inputs, but it has to deliver an output. The problem is that planning is broken and we're not the only example of that in Northern Ireland.'
Kelly said he understood that 'people want to preserve the area as it is, but preservation without progress leads to decline. What we are doing is balancing environmental protection with creating opportunities for the community.
'This project will leave a positive mark, not just economically but environmentally. We're not just mining gold, we're planting trees, restoring peatlands and creating wetlands. If we get approval we will invest $1 billion more.'
McKenna claimed that some Dalradian staff had faced aggression and online hate. Someone sent a mocked-up coffin to his home, which he read as a death threat. One web message directed to staff said: 'This is a war and if you are the face of Dalradian then you are the enemy.' On police advice, some staff have started to wear bodycams while surveying, just in case of an incident.
Opponents have also described getting 'credible death threats' and hostile calls and messages directed their way. O'Kane said: 'The police have told us to take precautions.'
Citing her commitment to something that has 'consumed' her life, she said: 'All during the Covid-19 pandemic we were researching goldmining, doing Zoom meetings with people all over the world. We have not heard one good news story about it anywhere. It's all about pollution.'
She added: 'It worries me that 25 per cent of the six counties of the north is now covered by prospecting licences, and 27 per cent of the Republic has been given out in prospecting licences. More than a quarter of the island has been handed over.
'Other companies tell us that if Dalradian gets planning permission, it opens the door for them. They're all waiting to see what happens … What we value is more than money.'
Communities Against Mining, another campaign group, said it was 'deeply alarmed' to learn that American congressmen were using 'political pressure' to try to win planning approval. It said: 'The people of the Sperrins, and indeed Northern Ireland as a whole, deserve a planning process that is fair, independent and free from external political interference.'
Stephen Kelly, chief executive of Manufacturing NI, said: 'This has to be seen in an international context. These are critical minerals in this mine and we need them to help develop new technology.'
He said plans showed the mine would be 'a reasonably small hole in the ground' and he was confident environmental concerns could be managed.
Kelly added: 'If this doesn't get planning consent it sends all the wrong signals to investors.'
The Executive Office at Stormont said: 'The matter is currently subject to a public inquiry.'