By Peter Kennedy, as originally published by Resource World.
The old adage of ‘Grade is King’ rings true at the present moment of volatility perhaps more so than in recent years and Group Eleven Resources Corp. [ZNG-TSXV, GRLVF-OTCQB, 3GE-FRA] is a company that offers a new high-grade zinc-silver-copper discovery in a safe jurisdiction – Ireland.
This article is disseminated in partnership with Group Eleven Resources Corp. It is intended to inform investors and should not be taken as a recommendation or financial advice.
The Ballywire discovery, located on the company’s 100%-owned PG West Project has been described as the most significant mineral find in Ireland in over a decade. First announced in 2022, the discovery has been the target of 75 holes drilled and reported by Group Eleven to date. In the past three years, the company has reported robust drill results over a strike length of 2.6 kilometres, which have boosted the company’s market cap from under $5.0 million to around $270 million.
Highlight results include 39.7 metres of 9.5% zinc and lead, 131 g/t silver and 0.27% copper, and 6.4 metres of nearly 1,000 g/t silver and just under 4.0% copper. Underneath a zinc horizon, drill crews have encountered steeply dipping copper-silver feeders.
Still in the early exploration stages, Ballywire is located 20 kilometres southeast of Glencore’s Pallas Green deposit, which hosts 45.4 million tonnes of grade 8.4% zinc plus lead, making it one of the largest undeveloped zinc deposits in the world.
Having recently raised C$12 million from a bought deal private placement of 13.3 million common shares priced at 90 cents each, Group Eleven is well positioned to continue exploration for the next two years at Ballywire and the adjacent Stonepark Project (77.64% owned by Group Eleven), which hosts an inferred resource of 5.1 million tonnes of 11.3% zinc plus lead.
Group Eleven has a third project in Ireland. The 60%-owned Ballinalack project, located 50 kilometres from the Tara zinc-lead mine. Ballinalack hosts a resource totalling 5.4 million tonnes of 8.7% zinc plus lead (7.6% zinc and 1.1% lead) and 9.0 g/t silver. However, it is a non-core asset and which remains on the back burner for now.
In its latest press release, the company said it intends to use the net proceeds from its C$10.4 million offering (before 15% underwriters option), plus its pre-existing C$7.2m working capital, to expand and accelerate its drill program at Ballywire from approximately 17,000 metres to 51,500 metres, and to expand drilling at Stonepark from approximately 3,000 metres to 15,500 metres. Given the 15% over-allotment was fully subscribed, the company now has an extra C$1.56m gross proceeds to add to the above work program.
Go-forward funded drilling, therefore, has increased from 20,000m pre-financing, to approx. 75,000m (67,000m in use-of-proceeds plus over-allotment), implying an increase of approx. 275% (or about 3.75x the original metres). That’s a big shot in the arm.
Group Eleven is led by CEO Bart Jaworski, who has spent over 25 years in the mining sector, working initially as a geologist and later as a mining analyst with Raymond James Ltd. in Vancouver and Davy in Dublin. Notable career highlights include an involvement during the early stages of the Coffee gold Project in the Yukon, which is now being developed by Fuerte Metals Corp. [FMT-TSXV].
He has the backing of a shareholder group, that includes financier Micheal Gentile, with a 13.8% stake and Glencore which holds 13.0% of Group Eleven’s 280.9 million shares. On March 17, 2026, the shares were priced at $1.05 in a 52-week range of $1.19 and 13.5 cents.
In an interview with Resource World, Jaworski said Ireland, aside from being the top jurisdiction in the world for zinc found per square kilometre, offers significant advantages over other mining jurisdictions. These include rich infrastructure (roads, rail, ports, year-round tidewater and power), proximity to European smelters, stable politics, straight-forward mining code and competitive drilling costs (thanks to no need for helicopters, road-building or camps; and an assay lab located in-country). He adds that the six discoveries made over the last 60 years in Ireland have all been put into production, in large part thanks to the above strategic advantages.
The Irish Zinc District has been a source of zinc production since the 1960s and is currently home to some of Europe’s largest zinc projects, including the Navan (Tara) Zinc-lead mine (Boliden), the Pallas Green deposit (Glencore) and the past producing Lisheen (Vendanta) and Galmoy mines (Lundin Mining Corp. [LUN-TSX; LUMI-Sweden], now Shanoon).
The focus on Ireland paid off in September 2022, when Group Eleven announced the discovery of high-grade massive sulphides as part of an initial step-out reconnaissance drill program at the Ballywire prospect.
Hole G11-468-03 intersected a broad zone of zinc-lead-silver mineralization over a width of 66.0 metres, including 10.8m of 10.0% zinc plus lead, and 109 g/t Ag.
Ballywire is situated at the intersection of the Pallas Green Corridor and the south-westerly projection of the famous Rathdowney Trend, which hosts the historic Lisheen and Galmoy zinc mines. At the time of the discovery, historic drilling was sparse.
At present, the company has four rigs drilling at Ballywire, with the aim of completing over 70,000 metre in Ireland by early 2028. Of that amount, 77% is planned for Ballywire. Currently 10 new holes are completed (and in the process of being logged, sampled and assayed), in progress and/or about to be drilled.
At this stage, Group Eleven is exploring on a 6.0-kilometre-long trend defined by four gravity high anomalies. “The whole discovery to date is located on only one of those gravity high anomalies,” Jaworski has said. “So we are only 25% of the way through the length of our prospective trend, plus we’ve recently doubled our tonnage potential with the discovery of Deeper Cu-Ag roots to the system, not to mention parallel zones of mineralization which we appear to be picking up in the latest drilling.”
In the February 25 release, drilling highlights included additional assays from drill hole 25-3552-51, which returned 52.3 metres of 10.3% zinc plus lead (5.8% zinc and 4.5% lead), 330 g/t silver and 0.40% copper. Below this intercept, the company also intersected three Cu-Ag zones, including 3.7m of 225 g/t Ag and 1.03% Cu. Jaworski said the latest results represent a major step forward in the company’s understanding of a deeper copper-silver target at Ballywire. “With significant copper-silver bearing fault structures now pierced along two drill fences located 350 metres apart, we have a much deeper conviction that deeper copper-silver mineralization may extend across the entire discovery.’’ The company aims to complete a maiden resource estimate once initial exploration in conducted on all the above target areas.
Meanwhile, Jaworski said he is encouraged that Shanoon Resources Ltd., a private company backed by the Irish Minerals Fund (a mining-focussed fund recently started by the Irish government) and Quinton Hennigh’s San Cristobal Mining, is moving to reopen the former Galmoy zinc mine.
Shanoon aims to recover significant quantities of high-grade ore that was left behind when the mine closed in in 2012. Surface facilities are currently under construction, with a portion of the mine’s original infrastructure still in place. The underground mine was originally operated from 1997 by Arcon International Resources, and then by Lundin Mining from 2005 to 2012. The mine is expected to be fully operational in 2026.
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