There's oil in them there hills!

MEATHMAN'S DIARY

Water, they say, could be the “new oil” in years to come yet the black stuff is still pretty valuable; generating millions and millions of dollars everyday for those countries where it is still produced.

Back in 1962 there was real hope that Meath could become an oil-producing region. It was in August of '62 that Ireland's first “exploratory well” was officially opened on 10 acres of land the Ambassador Irish Oil Company had purchased from Rathmolyon farmer Jack Kangley.
Seismographic surveys of the area had indicated there could be black gold bubbling underneath the green fields of Rathmolyon.
The possibility of oil gushing from those same fields sent the government into something of a spin. Dollar signs must have flashed before the eyes of both drillers and government officials. A life in clover beckoned. 
A ceremony to mark the official opening of the Rathmolyon oil well in August of '62 was attended by a bevy of big shots that included no less a figure than An Taoiseach Sean Lemass. He was joined by the then Minister for Industry and Commerce Jack Lynch and the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, Michael Hilliard, the Meath TD.
The site was blessed by Very Rev P Dillon PP, Kill (acting for the Bishop of Meath, Most Rev Dr J Kyne). Locals would have watched with considerable interest and amazement as the “derrick” or oil rig was constructed. The Meath Chronicle reported, with a hint of pride, how “the derrick thrusts itself towards the sky to a height greater than that of Nelson Pillar in Dublin.”
The drilling was expected to explore down to a depth of 5,000 feet and was to take place over four weeks on a 24-hour basis.
Equipment “weighing 1,650 tons” was transported from Houston, Texas. In a caravan on the drilling site there was laboratory facilities, valued at £6,000, for analysing samples of “cuttings” and “cores” (cylindrical sections of rock cut with a special bit). There were three four-man crews employed on the drill, each working eight-hour shifts, “and a relief crew to allow each man a day off per week.” Three of the drillers were Americans, one a Canadian. “The crew members are mostly Co Meath men,” the Chronicle reported, also with a touch of pride.
One of the Americans, George Stewart, warned that when it came to exploring for oil “nothing surprised him.” He was cautious about finding any black gold underneath the fields of Rathmolyon. Hopeful but cautious. 
As subsequent events proved his caution, certainly in relation to the Rathmolyon site, was well founded. However, for a few weeks there was real hope the fields of south Meath were about to yield up large quantities of the black stuff that would have turned Ireland into a super-rich state. Sadly such hopes were to prove illusionary and before long drillers packed up their equipment and disappeared again over the horizon.