What precious gems are native Ireland?

Answer 1

Emerald is one of the precious gems that are native to Ireland. Small amounts of sapphire and ruby have been found in Ireland as well.

Emerald IS NOT NATIVE TO IRELAND but is associated with it as it is called the "Emerald Isles".emerald material is native to many places including Brazil, and the Minas Gervais region of that country where most of the marketed faceted emerald stones originate. Sapphire and Ruby are also not native to Ireland. In fact they are not native to any single country but found in many.Most aspphire material is found in gravels in stream beds and rice paddies in Asian countries.Most notably Thailand, Burma and Border areas near the two countries.Corundum - or rubies and sapphire materials are also found in North Carolina and Montana (for sapphires) in the USA . Most concentrated near Cherokee County, and in Franklin NC and Hiawassee Georgia. Road-side mining stops in the Smoky Mountains in North Carolina offer bags of salted dirt tourists can go through ( with water on a 'sleuce' and in mesh frames which hold the gem materials and allow dirt and clays to fall through) in hopes of finding gem material that originated in Brazil and other countries that is added together and placed in bags sold for quite a lot of money. Though it is fun and one may find some chips of gems or "d" grade material the gems are not usually found together but are collected from blast mining operations and added to the dirt, shipped in 55 gallon drums overseas then re-bagged and resold to unsuspecting tourists at highly inflated prices. Further they offer to set the stones for a HIGHLY inflated price in an overpriced setting. If the gemstone were taken home with the "finder" they could have the same stone set by a local jeweller for a fraction of the cost and an easily collected on warranty! if the stone comes loose in the setting.

As for Ireland the list below represents reliable data on minerals in the country, mostly in Northern Ireland:

Albite

Beryl

'Biotite'

'Feldspar Group'

Fluorite

'Mica Group'

Muscovite

Opal

var: Opal-AN

Orthoclase

Quartz

Topaz

'Tourmaline'

Zircon

Mindat is a great resource for looking up a given mineral or gem material in a specific region or place.

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Answer 2

EMERALD