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A mystery of Cathedral Cave solved
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You might remember that back in 2007 I was having trouble recreating the Gallahers Irish View photo of Cathedral Cave.
Can you see anything odd in my recreated photo below? I thought that there had possibly been some rockfall from the roof near the entrance which would account for the boulders in the cave mouth. But the right hand side also looks peculiar and different. At first I thought it may have been my angle that was wrong, but it didn’t add up.
This new photo by Robert J. Welch sheds some “light” on the matter. It appears that there once existed a giant column in the westerly cave mouth which must have collapsed since c1900. It was known as the “Great Column”. This also shows that Robert Welch was using flash !!! Note the relative brightness of the column against the darker section behind.
This is quite interesting Andy.
Nice to see your picture again. Still looks good.
I just received an email offering me something to resurrect the “great column”.
I’ll forward it on to you Andy. Apparently your wife will like it, but personally
I can’t see her going to a cave with you.Hehe, thanks Pete.
Rest assured that there are plenty more great columns where that came from.
Here’s a little side by side that I put together.
Wow.. that is some difference. It makes you wonder about the changes that will happen in photos we’ve taken.
Landscapes feel a little more permanent than people images, but this shows changes on a larger scale.Yes, it’s fascinating to imagine tonnes of rock collapsing on a stormy night.
There were once two pillars holding up the roof of Cathedral Cave, now there is only one. Hopefully I’ll not be in it when the other one goes.
Just curious; do we know if RJW took the original on the Gallagher card? Do we know who took which pix in the series?
Robert,
That’s a mystery still to be solved. We know that Robert Welch didn’t take all the Gallaher Views as some of them were taken by less well known photographers working for Valentines postcards.
Look at this interesting postcard. Robert Welch never did postcards and I would find it hard to believe tha he would have allowed this photo to be copied into this almost identical postcard drawing. So my guess is that the Gallahers view is not RJW.
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