Life
1893-? [John Thomas MacMahon] author of Ramblers from Clare and Other Sketches (Talbot Press 1936), 229pp. [Hyland 1995]. Another edition (Sidney: Pelligrini 1939), 229pp.; Preface refers to ‘Persons and incidents that I have encountered on my rambles’ [Nat. Lib. of Australia Cat. - online].
[ top ]
The story of Patrick Hannan (in Ramblers, &c., 1936) - MacMahon tells the story of Patrick Hannan, an Irishman from Co. Clare who ‘pegged’ numerous super-rich gold deposits in Western Australian [WA]: “At what is now Kalgoorlie, one of their horses strayed. During the search for the horse they found gold in some quantity. On the nearby ridge of Mount Charlotte they found water, an essential prerequisite for their work. Then Paddy found a series of gullies where gold was clearly visible. Within two days they had unearthed 100 ozs. of gold. [That’s nearly $200,000 worth in today’s value.] Paddy Hannan rode to Kalgoorlie to register his claim and was awarded the space of ground which became known as “The Hannan Award” [Hannan’s Reward]. News of the find spread like wildfire, within two days they were joined by 400 men and in a week this had grown to 1,000.” (See Singersong blog [An Aussie in Co. Clare] - online; accessed 03.11.2023.]
Note: blogist mentions that another Irishman called Charles Yelverton O’Connor from Co. Meath built ‘a 350 mile pipeline from Perth to the desert [but] sadly under intense public criticism of the scheme he took his life before the water arrived.’ Hannan and O’Connor are both cited in the title of Chapter 1 of The Most Famous Irish People You’ve Never Heard Of, by Colin Murphy (O’Brien Press 2009) - which cites Ramblers from Clare in the Talbot Press edition [online; 03.11.2023].
| [ top ] |