Gold in them there hills

The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETINI) last week advised it was granting the company a prospecting licence covering thousands of hectares of land stretching between Drumahoe and Omagh.

Dalriadan’s Northern Ireland subsidiary - Dalriadan Gold Limited (DGL) - holds a DETI licence to prospect for minerals in the Hollymount Ward in Londonderry, which runs from Currynierin to Killymallaght and from Ardkill to Newbuildings.

It also holds prospecting licences for a number of wards in Strabane - including Donemana, Artigarvan and Slieve Kirk - and a range of other wards as far as Omagh.

DETI told the Sentinel that the Mineral Development Act (Northern Ireland) 1969 permits the applicant to prospect for all minerals except: gold and silver which belong to the Crown Estate; a few mineral deposits (mainly salt) which were being worked at the time of the 1969 Act and were not vested in the Department; and common substances such as crushed rock, sand, gravel and brick clays.

However, DGL already holds a number of gold prospecting licences issued by the Crown Estate commissioners and will be looking to explore gold and silver prospects in the wider Sperrins area.

The company has already commenced a program to develop and expand its mineral resources at the Curraghinalt Gold Deposit in Gortin and has said it plans to initiate engineering, metallurgical and environmental studies to contribute to its ongoing economic assessment work.

Equally the firm has said: “We are also targeting new discoveries and evaluating known showings at several other sites covered by our licences.”

DGL’s licences cover 84,000 hectares encompassing several gold prospects, including Curraghin, its flagship asset, which it describes as a “mesothermal gold deposit with mineralisation open along strike and down dip.”

Last week Dalriadan Resources Inc. issued a statement from its Toronto headquarters marking recent progress at Curraghinalt.

It claimed to have extended the known mineralisation at it the deposit there.

“Our four rig drill program continues to pick up the pace with over 3500 metres of drilling in seven holes reported in this release,” said Patrick F. N. Anderson, Company CEO and Chairman.

“To put this in perspective, we have completed just over 10,000 metres in 31 drill holes since going public last August. We expect another two drill rigs to arrive on site this summer to further enhance the exploration program,” he said.

Judging from the DGL’s stated objectives this could all soon be coming to a hill near you.

DGL’s strategic goals in Londonderry and Tyrone are explicitly to better define and develop the current mineral resources identified in the Curraghinalt Deposit; conduct further exploration to identify whether mineral resources extend beyond the known mineralization of the Curraghinalt Deposit; Identify new mineral resources on its licence areas