Miners worked six eight hours shifts, six days a week in poor conditions. Here is a description of some jobs in the mine.

This man's job was to inspect the different machines. He had an office in the same building where he would make notes of what things were wrong with machines and which ones needed to be serviced. He was also responsible for checking there were no rotten timbers in the mine as these could collapse and cause a cave-in. 

The jig table guy would take the crushed rock from the crusher and shovel it into the jig table. The heavy pieces with lead would go to the bottom and the pieces with no lead would come out the side. The rock with no lead is responsible for all the spire-heaps up near Glendalough mines.

Two people took the crushed ore and packed it into hundred weight bags with the letter L on them. These bags were then piled in a heap where a lorry would collect them and bring them  to Avoca to be pressed and after that to the smelter in England.

Two people took the crushed ore and packed it into hundred weight bags with the letter L on them. These bags were then piled in a heap where a lorry would collect them and bring them  to Avoca to be pressed and after that to the smelter in England.

Four people were blasters in the mine. They could all be working at the same time on different places or they could be working on the same one. However it was most likely that two people would be working on one and the other two on a different one. The blasters would place the gelignite in the drilled holes and connect up the wires to the detonator. They would push the button on the detonator with a long pole and KABOOOM!!!

The tipper finds a wagon full of rocks and takes it. He moves the wagon until he comes to the crushing area. When he comes to the crushing area he tips the rocks that are in the wagon down a steep smooth slope into the crushing area.

From the crushing area he takes the rocks that the tipper tipped down and shovels them into the crushing machine. The machine crushes the rocks into small enough pieces to go in to the jig-table. 

This man has responsibility for the pit ponies. He feeds them, makes sure they don't get lost and notifies the shift supervisor if they are sick or if other miners are mistreating them.