Kalgoorlie: Worth More Than its Weight in Gold

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Kalgoorlie:

Worth more than its weight in Gold

BY LLOYD GORMAN

SOMEWHERE IN THE REGION OF 38,000 PEOPLE CALL KALGOORLIE HOME, MAKING IT THE BIGGEST OUTBACK CITY IN AUSTRALIA. WITHOUT EXCEPTION, EVERY KALGOORLIEAN WE MET WAS WARM, FRIENDLY AND HELPFUL.

The Irish are renowned for our ‘cead mile failte’ (hundred thousand welcomes) but it has to be said that these folk know how to make you feel welcome and that you are amongst friends. Conversations with complete strangers start as easily as a bushfire might in the arid landscape. There are a few people in the local Irish community I want to meet during my brief stint in the frontier town, including one Ashok Parekh. At first sight the name might not suggest he is Irish, but Ashok has a very similar story to former Taoiseach (Prime Minister) and serving Tánaiste (Deputy PM) Leo Vadakar, something that is not lost on him. Indeed Ashok was born and lived in Dublin until he turned 19 when he spread his wings and went on adventures further afield. I seem to recall that he tells me he has made ‘Kal’ his home since the mid 1980’s. Certainly he is a well known and high profile member of the community through his various businesses, interests and activities. It just so happens the day I meet him there is a double page spread with the headline ‘Without doubt he is the King of Kalgoorlie’ in that day’s West Australian and the ‘local’ paper, the Kalgoorlie Miner, as part of the ‘Steve Butler’s Bush Legends’ series. The sub heading in the feature in the West reads; “Philosophies of an Irish kid who struck it rich in the Goldfields”. Butler writes that Parekh has had a remarkable life journey from being a broke teenager “in his Irish homeland with few definite prospects” to prospering in “WA’s home of prospecting”. “Mr Parekh was born and raised in Dublin by his Indian father, a medical doctor, and Irish mother Sheila,” Butler wrote. “But it was when she died suddenly in East Africa when he was just four, that his life took a dramatic twist. Family issues over his parents’ interracial marriage saw him sent to

Left: Well known Kalgoorlie local, Irishman Ashok Parekh. Above: Mr Parekh was featured in the West Australian newspaper on October 15, 2021

Dublin’s strict Mount Sackville school while his father stayed working in the Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam. “The first year was terrible, the worst year of my life,” he recalled. “We were five years old and the nuns were beating us up. You were just s… scared”.” Following that ordeal, Ashok went to Willow Park Junior School, Williamstown, Blackrock, Co. Dublin and then Blackrock College. Bob Geldof, who turned 70 very recently, also attended both schools. Ashok formed many friendships with his school mates, relationships which are continued and cherished to this day. His father returned to Dublin in 1973 with more bad news, the family were broke. “He said (to me), You’ve got nowhere to live, you’ve got no money and you’ve got no job, but you’ve got a good personality so you’ll do well, and when you do well, never forget where you came from.” He would come to Australia in 1975 and follow on to Kalgoorlie where his father was now based. Armed with nothing more than his natural ability, entrepreneurial spirit, gumption and willingness to work harder and smarter, Ashok became a very successful accountant and then business figure in his own right. Amongst his various interests, Ashok is a substantial property owner in the town. The Exchange Hotel used to be his and in that time he opened Paddy’s Ale House inside it. He sold that off in 2008 and today The Exchange is owned by Lawson Douglas and Dave Allan, two school mates*. Ashok tips his hat to the duo and acknowledges they are “good operators”. *Mssrs Douglas and Allan acquired the Subiaco Hotel almost exactly three years ago from the previous and original owners – including the family of Irish descent, the first time it had changed hands since it was built in 1897. Paddy’s Ale House is gone but has at least been replaced by another venue that pays tribute to the Irish founder of the town. Its logo is a capital P in the background and a prospectors pick axe in front of it. ‘Paddys’ is a nicely decorated and comfortable locale with good food. Not so much an Irish pub, but certainly one named and themed after one of the most famous Irish men in Australian lore.

If an ‘Irish pub’ is all that is missing from the dozens of choices of watering holes spread around Kalgoorlie and Boulder, then Ashok has an another ace up his sleeve. He plans to open ‘The Irish Pub Kalgoorlie’ in early 2022. “I always wanted to do another Irish pub,” he admits. Indeed, it is a card he has probably been wanting to play for some time now. Always thinking at least two steps ahead he shrewdly bought up the contents and decorative material of the former Rosie O’Grady’s in Fremantle when it closed several years ago. You can expect some of that paraphernalia to go into the new venue, but there will be other interesting items. Ashok shows me around the offices of his accountancy practice across the road from The Palace. As a first time visitor it is hard not to feel a bit like Aladdin walking into the cave of treasures. Every where you look there are artefacts, signs and goodies of all sorts. Too much to take in all at once. Like a private art dealer, he has also amassed a large collection of framed pieces which he takes great pride in. They are largely sporting records, memorabilia and collectables. Many are the signed jerseys of various Irish national teams across different sports. His latest acquisition is a beautifully framed Conor McGregor tribute, which he picked up from West Coast Eagles captain Luke Shuey who was in Kalgoorlie recently. Ashok has the vision and venue for the new pub but there is one key ingredient he has yet to add to the mix. He is on the lookout for Irish people to manage and crew it. “If there are any Irish out there who want to come and work here tell them to give us a call,” he told Irish Scene. Apparently there are about 3,000 jobs going begging in Kalgoorlie and not enough local workers to fill them. As he shows me around the Palace, Ashok introduces me to his head chef, Kevin, another Dubliner, who has worked for him for the last 20 years. Kevin is a True Blue Dub who enjoys a laugh and banter, it is nice to hear a pure Dublin accent and the banter. Amongst the many dishes Kevin’s kitchen produces every day, the Palace gets through a serious amount of pork sausages and other meats from McLoughlin’s Butchers in Malaga, owned and operated of course by another proud Dub, Paul McLoughlin.

Left: Ashok showing off some of his sporting records, memorabilia and collectables that will be on display in his new pub. Right: Hotel Manager Liz Sheehan at the newly renovated Palace Hotel in Southern Cross

SOUTHERN COMFORTS

If Ashok is the King of Kalgoorlie, then another Dublin native could comfortably wear the title of Queen of Southern Cross. Just over two hours drive outside Kalgoorlie, another Palace Hotel is the domain of the unstoppable Liz Sheehan. She has spent the last three years diligently upgrading, maintaining and even expanding the 1911 built property while all the time keeping the doors open – even through COVID – to customers and the community. “It was not a pretty sight,” Liz says about The Palace when she took over as manager. “The place had a massive structural renovation back in 1992 but the aesthetics of that time meant every was dark green and very mustardy, yellow and very sombre. Everything was closed in and heavy, with curtains. So we lightened and brightened it up, its such a gorgeous building you really want to show it off you know.” As well as giving the place a complete makeover there was other essential work that needed to be done. “We had to replace practically everything, redo the electrics, fire alarms, the kitchen and cooler rooms. I’ve managed hotels now for 25 or 30 years and I’ve done a lot

of hotel renovations in Europe, but this is my first one in Australia. We’re about three quarters of the way there, its a work in progress.” She has adapted the hotel to meet the demands being placed on it in today’s environment. In addition to installing a new commercial grade kitchen, Liz has also put in a ‘mess’ for the dozens of workers and crews staying at the hotel. They are able to get an early morning (5am) breakfast and packed lunch and a full meal when they return from a hot and heavy day day at their various worksites. The bar offers another chance for grafters to get together and share a drink and chat. But with such early starts they are usually tucked up in bed by about 8pm. In its long history The Palace has never had more paying and staying guests than it has under Liz’s watch. A small two bed house beside the hotel was removed to make room for accommodation for another 36 people with a further 24 to go in as well. With no more land left to occupy or use that will

Left: The stunning leadlight work at the Palace Hotel in Southern Cross (above)

be it, but many more workers and visitors can now find shelter, a bed and some of the comforts of home there. Demand is strong and the hotel is packed to the rafters. “There’s a lot going on in the region,” explains Liz. “We’ve got the facilities, a kitchen that is pretty much state of the art and a scale of operations that so many places here don’t, a bar and we can put it all together. We can feed 60 to 80 people a day in the workers camp and it will soon be a 100 a day.” For the last few months quite a few of those hungry – and thirsty – mouths being put up at The Palace speak with an Irish accent. “We have multiple contracts going on, including one for a company doing a big project in the area,” she explained. “Ninety-five per cent of their crew staying here happen to be Irish. Its quite funny because I wasn’t expecting that. I got a phone call one day asking if we had rooms and bit by bit the company started sending their guys down with names that other people couldn’t pronounce, and every one of them were Irish.” The rebirth of The Palace has been good for the hotel and building itself but there have been other benefits. Without giving anything away, Liz said the money that has been put into the restoration and revamp has been ‘phenomenal’. “The owners are very, very generous,” she said. “They have never taken a cent out of it in the last three years and instead say to reinvest it back into the hotel. So a 100% of what we make here goes back into the hotel. The town (Southern Cross) will gain greatly from this project. What we are doing here now will benefit the town for another two decades, whoever owns the Palace in the future.” Indeed during the height of pandemic restrictions last year The Palace proved its value. “During COVID we were the only place within a 100km that remained open and we were heaving. The bar was closed but the rest of the hotel was choc-a-bloc. There were no rooms left and we were feeding everyone but they would have to take their meals back to their rooms. It was a big operation and the town were happy to have somebody doing food as well because they were all sick of cooking,” she laughed. “So we did all these family meal deals to keep them going. We were very busy. It was good. We lost revenue from the bar but we did a lot of take-away. We adapted. We survived.” Liz has also been a keen supporter of a very worthy cause, the local Parnana Pikurtu Wildlife Sanctuary. In September last year she organised and staged a fund raiser night in the Palace. It was a roaring success. “We raised 10,000 dollars on the night, which was just incredible for a small town. I thought we might make $5,000 which would have been great, but it just kept going up and up and I had to check the numbers four or five times before I announced the amount because I didn’t think it was possible, that it must have been a mistake.” There was live music and her brother-in-law who is an auctioneer by trade ran an auction while her two sisters from Perth came up and helped out with the bar and food and selling tickets. “It was all hands on deck and the town were amazingly generous. It was a great night.” While Irish Scene was there, Liz mustered up the support of many of the Irish boys staying at the hotel to help the sanctuary to get some badly needed building and repair works done. Skilled manpower might be at a premium now across WA but the Irish contingent of hard working tradies and contractors didn’t flinch at the idea of turning

their time and talents to helping the charity in their own time. The owners of the Palace asked Liz to run the place for them just over three years ago and as she has said earlier in this piece, it is her first hotel in Australia, but not in her career. Before she came here she spent the previous 25 years living and working in France. She went there a short time after her Leaving Cert with the intention of staying for six months to a year to improve her French and stayed much longer and of course became a fluent speaker.

THE PUB WITH NO BEER HAS PLENTY OF IRISH CIDER

You could argue that the Palace Hotel in Southern Cross is one of Australia’s most famous watering holes. Of the countless choice of bars to pick from the Palace is the setting for Slim Dusty’s Aussie folk classic ‘The pub with no beer’, a favoured tune held in the same kind of affectionate regard as Waltzing Matilda for many Australians. I am keen to raise this iconic connection with Liz who is fully aware – and proud – of it. “Yeah, this is the Pub with No Beer, except we have beer,” she laughed. “There is another place in WA that claims its them, its not, its us.” There is a fantastic photograph that proves the link, it was taken in 1972 by photographer Bruce Howard for the book ‘Australian Pubs’ - the end result of a 25,000-mile pub crawl by the author (John Larkins) and Mr Howard. It clearly shows a much younger Slim Dusty straddling his hard guitar case outside the Palace Corner as it was called at the time. Irish Scene tried to get copyright permission to include the iconic image as part of this feature, but unfortunately was unable to do so in time. It is quite easy to find on the online archive website Trove if you type in his name along with other key words such as Southern Cross/Palace. Alternatively it’s call number on the online archive is PIC P805/455 LOC Q117. In any case, the Pub with no Beer (if we can still call it that now) has a distinctively Irish twist. Because so many of her long stay patrons have a hankering for the taste of home and asked her nicely The Palace now stocks long neck bottles (stubbies) of the Irish brewed cider Magners (which is marketed as Bulmers back in Ireland). Some nights there it is the biggest seller. There was also a whisper that the libation was the perfect tipple for those who watched the All Ireland Finals in the hotel, a very special occasion indeed. Maybe there’s another legendary song in there somewhere. On my brief but brilliant visit to the Palace I met guests David, Brian and Marcus and Julian (head chef), Anders and Fitzie (bar) and her husband and enjoyed their company. Everybody we met in Kalgoorlie was friendly, easy to talk to and had a yarn or two to share. Of course Irish Scene sought out as many Irish people as possible. When Fred Rea heard I was going to Kal he suggested I should catch up with Claire Weir. We met briefly at the Kalgoorlie Hotel for a drink and

Top and left: County Westmeath expats Riahanna Allen and her partner Bernard live and work in Kalgoorlie. Above: We also met with Dublin man and Kalgoorlie Golf Course greenskeeper Niall Rogan at the Kalgoorlie Races.

chat about an hour before I was due to jump on the train to get to Southern Cross. She is perhaps one of the most Australian and simultaneously most Irish person I have ever met. She is a natural product of her Irish heritage and Goldfields environment, full of knowledge about local place names and areas(and often their Irish connections) and likely to jump in the UTE with a swag and take off and camp in the outback. A photographer and writer able to capture the beauty and stories around her. If at some point she can find time in her busy schedule to create something for Irish Scene we would love to have it. On the Sunday we were in Kalgoorlie there was a horse racing meet. The heritage tram – very similar to the one operating in Subiaco – that takes visitors around Kalgoorlie and Boulder is pulled up outside the tourist office as I start to make my way there. I jump on board and ask the driver if the racetrack is on his route. Its not and I go to get off but he tells me to sit down. A few minutes later I am dropped off at an unscheduled stop, right outside the ticket office for the course (I scored a second lift back to the track that day thanks again to Maria from the Palace Hotel). I ask the lady behind the desk for a ticket. A voice with a soft brogue came from the back or side of the office asks: “Is that a Dublin accent?”. The question comes from Riahanna Allen, a native of Castlepollard, County Westmeath. Riahanna first came out to Kalgoorlie about 2011 when she said there was loads of Irish around. Apparently there are not as many these days and it was nearly the case that those numbers could have been depleted by another two. Both Riahanna and her partner Bernard Callaghan, from Coolnagun, Lismacaffrey, Co. Westmeath, who works in the gold mines, were

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lucky to get back when they did from a return trip to Ireland, just before COVID hit and the borders closed. Inside the track as I’m milling about with Ashok – who happened to be the first person I met when I came in – my Irish Scene shirt catches the attention of a young man enjoying the races with friends. Niall Rogan is from Swords, 10km north of Dublin’s city centre. He is approaching five years in Australia and has carved out a place for himself in the locality as 2IC greenskeeper for the Kalgoorlie Golf Course, a job he is proud of. The course is one of the most remarkable of its kind in the world. It is an oasis of vivid green and beautifully manicured fairways and greens in an otherwise dusty and harsh landscape. It hosts the Western Australian PGA and several open tournaments a year as well as a large number of events throughout the year. Kalgoorlie is also part of the world’s largest golf course. It has two of the 18 holes in the 1,365km long Nullarbor Golf Links and together with Norseman and Ceduna represents the start/finish of the long links, depending on which way you are travelling.

ALAN FELT THE LURE OF GOLD!

When Alan Ryan first came to Western Australia thirty two years ago, he arrived with a broken heart and having failed English in his Leaving Cert exams. Now in 2021, the older and more experienced Skerries man –inspired by that time in his life – has published his debut novel, a book he calls a love letter to WA. Certainly “Magpie: A tender journey into the heart of Australia” is a beautifully written and told story. “I never considered myself a writer or even capable of writing a book, but then I got injured and I couldn’t train [for Iorn Man challenges] and that freed up a bit of time, so I wrote about my experiences going mining and travelling through Western Australia and the characters you meet out there,” said Alan. “It’s a love letter effectively to Western Australia. It’s sort of a crime book, like a crime novel and like a romance novel. It’s about a young lad, a heartbroken young lad who finds himself in Western Australia. He’s living in a tree house. He’s been working on a sheep station and his bosses let him go off looking for gold and do a bit of sketching. And he finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time and gets into a spot of bother, but he travels deeper into the interior of the continent with some girl he’s picked up along the way and it’s about avoiding being captured but finding themselves at the same time. He was a bit of a drifter, a bit of a waster but living in the bush has opened his mind and new experiences. It’s his transformation. The ‘Magpie’ is the Australian magpie, which is a different one to the European one. The European magpie is a relative of the crow but the Australian one is a song bird and features in all of the Aboriginal stories, a flavour of that comes into the book.”

Above: Alan Ryan working on the land in Western Australia. Right: One of his art pieces

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Right: Alan in his former Ironman days. Below: Alan’s art has been an inspiration for his first novel

‘Magpie’ is set in 1990. Alan came to WA and Kalgoorlie in 1989. Actually, it was at that time another Alan – Alan Bond – is said to have been flying over Kalgoorlie in that year and looked down and saw dozens if not hundreds of small claims – each with their own head frames over deep shafts* – dotted around the ‘Golden Mile’ and had the idea of consolidating them all into one large claim.*It is said that there are so many underground tunnels and shafts in this area alone that if they were put end to end they would be able to reach Sydney. “My first experience of Kalgoorlie was in 1989, before the Super Pit. I worked as a jackaroo out on Credo Station – which is now a museum I believe,” he said [Credo is a former pastoral lease of some 212,000 hectares about 70km north of Coolgradie. The homestead was acquired by the Department of the Environment and Conservation in 2007]. “It was during my time working on Credo that I got interested in geology and finding my fortune,” he added. “The area was littered with evidence of historical and modern gold mining. And what young lad is not fascinated by stories of giant nuggets! After finishing at Credo, at the age of 21, I set up my camp/treehouse similar to the character of Jim (Macken) in Magpie. I prospected with a metal detector but didn’t find a thing and that’s what inspired me to go back and study as a mature student. When the working holiday visa expired, I returned to Ireland and studied geology at Trinity College Dublin. The college lecturers were more concerned that I got the science right and overlooked my spelling and grammatical shortcomings.” At the age of 29, Alan graduated and returned to WA for a fresh attempt at unearthing the riches of the outback. He even found gold, but couldn’t keep it as he was working for someone else. “I returned to the area in 1996 as a geologist and worked for a number of different mining companies in Kalgoorlie, Southern Cross and Cue,” Alan explained. In the relatively short gap between his visits, Alan was struck by how prospecting had changed from the traditional methods to an industrial scale. It is remarkable to see how quickly massive machines and explosives have totally replaced manpower, wheel barrows and pick axes. “It was in the 2000’s when I worked for Andrew Forrest and his newly formed iron ore company, FMG. As an exploration geologist we’d be going out alone, camping rough and sleeping under the stars and you’d meet all sorts of creatures out there. The first time I went out I found a nugget but I had to hand it over because I was working for someone and it wasn’t mine. I did not share his vision and returned to Ireland.” He now calls Wexford home where he lives with his wife and two children. With his first novel Alan skilfully unpacks memories and details of the place and its inhabitants. He draws on personal experience and many of the real life stories he encountered or found in the dry landscape. There is, for example, a very sad scene when the main protagonist Jim discovers an early and abandoned cemetery, including the graves of several children. The tragic story of how two young brothers died down a

mineshaft is sadly true. Indeed, much of what he writes and describes rings true, written from the perspective of someone – who is unmistakably Irish – who has lived, endured and enjoyed the same experiences. Alan freely admits that as a child he preferred watching TV (Starsky and Hutch or the Six Million Dollar Man were favourites) or “running around feral outside” to reading books – in a house that was full of books. He also believes that he had wrestled with “a bit of dyslexia” and found the prospect of written assignments for college daunting. “An inability to learn to spell and my dodgy grammar followed me into adulthood,” he joked. But even as his confidence grew as he passed exams writing remained a chore. But on the other side of the equation, he possesses the right qualities, abilities and determination necessary to write a book, and overcome obstacles in life. “When people talk about their love for words, that’s not me,” he said. “I love pictures, I paint and it was the images about the place that struck me and my own experiences. ‘Magpie’ came to me in pictures. I suspect I write more with the eye of an artist as opposed to being a writer. Discovering writing has been the most liberating and challenging experience. For four years, every available minute was spent plotting, writing, and editing my story. I would find myself typing furiously outside my daughter’s ballet class, or outside the swimming pool during my kids’ lessons. Coffee shops and trains were amongst my preferred writing spaces. Long meditative swims were, I found, the best way to tease out problems with the plot. It has taken many years of full days and countless rewrites to get my novel to a place where I am happy to publish it. It has been a most wonderful and exciting journey. I am proud of what I have produced and hope that anyone who takes the time to read ‘Magpie’ will enjoy it too.” ‘Magpie: A tender journey into the heart of Australia’ is well worth a look, particularly if you are Irish and have had any level of contact with this amazing red and brown place we now call home. The first chapter can be downloaded for free from Amazon.com.au while the full novel itself is also available on Irish website Buy the Book. It also deserves a place on the shelves of book stores and homes here in Perth, the Goldfields and further afield in Australia.

A FAMOUS PATCH OF DIRT

For many years now I laboured under the impression that the exact spot where Hannan found gold must have been swallowed up by the insatiable and all consuming void of the awesome Super-pit, the second biggest man made hole in the world (Which, by the way, is worth taking a tour of if you get the chance). But it was only while I was in Kal itself I heard a whisper that the exact piece of ground where it all started actually still existed. Some locals seemed to have never have heard about it but others were better informed. I was told to look for “Paddy Hannan’s Tree”, but even its location was shrouded in some confusion and uncertainty. My best nudge in the right direction came from the lovely Marie in the Palace

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Right: Kalgoorlie’s Super-pit minesite. Inset: The original spot where Paddy Hannan found gold

Hotel. She told me to go back out onto Hannan Street and walk towards the end of town (in the direction of the Museum) and find the world’s tallest bin, turn right and keep going and it would be a short distance up form there. I found myself at the rear of the museum and saw a road sign for Paddy Hannan’s Tree. There wasn’t much around. But just up behind an old limestone block hotel with evidence of renovation and construction work taking place a black fence poked out into view. Closer up it looked like a tiny graveyard with a small cluster of headstones. Plaques attached to each of the stones reveal the story of the spot. One, dedicated for the Centenary of Western Australia in 1929, states it was: “erected by the Citizens of Kalgoorlie in honour of the late Patrick Hannan, discoverer of Kalgoorlie, who found gold on this spot 15th June 1893.” Another inscription on a larger monument – erected by the Eastern Goldfields Historical Society and City of Kalgoorlie Boulder – reads: “In this vicinity Patrick Hannan, Thomas Flannagan and Daniel Shea first found “colours of gold” on 10th June, 1893. A reward claim was applied for by Hannan & Flannagan at Coolgardie on 17th June, 1893. “The first tree to mark this spot was planted on 3rd August, 1897 by Miss Florence Snell, stepdaughter of Mayor H.G. Parsons. “This plaque was placed on the occasion of the planting of a new tree on 13th June 1993 by Miss Natasha Yuryevich, daughter of Mayor R.S. Yuryevich to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the find.” A third stone “tablet” marked the 50th anniversary of the discovery of Gold on June 15th 1943. It was also erected to record 50 years of progress in the mining industry on the East Coolgardie Goldfield. The amount of gold won from 15-6-1893 to 15-6- 1943 totalled 20,172,505 fine Ozs valued at $150,000. Population 25,000.”

COLOURS OF GOLD

Thanks to another prominent Irish born West Australian we have a detailed account of Hannan’s find, in his own words. Born in Liverpool to Irish parents, Sir John Kirwan would, amongst other things, be elected to Federal Parliament for Kalgoorlie in the first national parliament of Australia (Federation) and would go on to become the president of the Legislative Council of the Western Australia Parliament. Kirwan knew Hannan personally, enough to give this full and frank description of him in his autobiography. Above: John Kirwan “Hannan was well known to me. He was under rather than over the average height, of medium build, with bright, beady eyes, a long beard and a ruddy complexion that betokened a healthy and vigorous outdoor life. Like many of the prospectors who opened up the goldfields, he was an Irishman; he was born in the parish

of Quin, County Clare, about 1842, and came to Australia when he was twenty-one years of age. In disposition he was quite unlike the jovial, riotous type fairly common in mining communities. Though not a total abstainer, yet he was remarkably temperate. Nothing could induce him to go beyond the limits of what temperance prescribes. On that point he was adamant. It did not contribute to his popularity amongst the gay reckless spirits of the early goldfields days, but he did not mind. He was not garrulous or a good conversationalist, though in some respects pleasant and genial. He was kindly, quiet and reserved. His education was that of the ordinary Irish peasant boy educated under the national school system, but his handwriting was excellent, and his letters are singular for their clearness of diction. Despite Hannan’s nationality, he was without imagination or sense of humour. All that happened to him he thought was commonplace and prosaic. The romantic side of gold-seeking, the wandering open-air life he led, did not appeal to him as to others.” At some point Kirwan must have sat Hannan down and written down Hannan’s story about the find, as follows. We also know from his book that a few years after Hannan made his big find that Kirwan was one of a group of people who financed him to go prospecting again, in the hope he might repeat his success and make another big claim, with all parties to share in the windfall. “We heard of his prospecting in the Menzies country,” wrote Kirwan. “It was rumoured that he had made another valuable find. No news reached us from him, but the rumour was circulated by men who had come from the locality where he was working. Late one night Hannan came to my office, travel-stained and looking mysterious. I was alone. He shut both doors and asked in a whisper if anyone could hear us. I assured him that we could not be heard. He again looked all round to make certain that we were alone. I was on the tip-toe of expectation. I felt convinced that he was going to startle me by announcing some wonderful find he had made. “What have you found?” I inquired eagerly in a whisper. He crept close to me, and in a scarcely audible voice solemnly said, “I’ve got nothing at all, at all.”

PADDY HANNAN’S FIRST HAND ACCOUNT OF HIS DISCOVERY, AS RELAYED AND DOCUMENTED BY KIRWAN IN HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY – ‘MY LIFE’S ADVENTURES’.

“I arrived in the colony in March, 1889, and was at Parkers Range about forty miles from Southern Cross, when Bayley reported the discovery of a rich reef at Coolgardie. I joined in the rush. “Early in June, 1893, news arrived at Coolgardie of a good discovery at a place called Mount Yuille, somewhere to the east or north-east. Parties left Coolgardie in search of the find. A few days after the report had been received, my mate, Thomas Flanagan, and I left Coolgardie. We left on June 7. We would have left earlier with the others, but we could not obtain horses, and so were delayed two or three days. We were lucky enough to pick up some animals in the bush ten or twelve miles from Coolgardie. The other parties going to Mount Yuille were mostly travelling with teams. Only one or two of the prospecting groups had horses of their own. We were a separate party, as we wished to be free to travel when we liked. We could also by this arrangement if we chose prospect any country during the journey. “A very large number was in the main party going to Mount Yuille. Only Bayley's claim was working at Coolgardie, and the alluvial had become exhausted just about the time we left, hence the strong desire amongst the men to reach the new find. “On June 10, three days after leaving Coolgardie, we reached what is now Kalgoorlie. The other parties had gone on in the direction of the reported discovery, but it was only to find later that the report had been false. “Well, as I have said, when we came on June 10 to Mount Charlotte, my mate and I decided to stop and prospect the country round about. To us it looked country where there might be alluvial. We found colours of gold and then got good gold at the north end of Mount Charlotte to down south of Maritana Hill. “There was another man by the way, Dan Shea was his name, to whom we gave an equal share in our venture. “We soon realised that we were located on a valuable field. Alluvial gold was in abundance. We got scores of ounces. It was agreed that I should go to Coolgardie and apply for a reward claim. I left Flanagan and Shea to watch our interests, and on June 17 started for Coolgardie. I got there on a Saturday night. The news of our find soon got abroad. There was a good deal of excitement. Hundreds of men set out for the scene. The flats and gullies all about our reward claim became alive with diggers dryblowing and finding gold.”

PIPE DREAMS

It was out of this moment in time that Kalgoorlie was born by serendipity. But it might well have died a death in the parched landscape like many other boom towns had it not been for the engineering genius of Charles Yelverton O’Connor, born in Gravelmount House in Co. Meath in 1843. Hannan’s achievements were nothing short of remarkable. Under his watch the rail network went from being on the verge of collapse to large scale expansion, helping to bring people to the Goldfields. But of course it was the Goldfields Water Supply Scheme (GWSS) that would ultimately help establish and sustain Kalgoorlie as Australia’s biggest outback city. CY O’Connor’s story is well known and frequently told as it should be. It is worth remembering that within ten years of Paddy Hannan’s find, O’Connor – from the grave – had managed to bring badly needed fresh water to the Kalgoorlie. Incredibly too, apart from the 566km of the GWSS itself, there are thousands of kilometres of other pipelines branching off from the main pipeline itself. Today more than 100,000 people still depend on it for their water needs, as do about six million sheep! Interestingly, the job of carrying on O’Connor’s legacy is upheld today by another Irish engineer.

PIPELINE BACK UNDER IRISH INFLUENCE

The Goldfields Water Supply Scheme (GWSS) is owned, operated and maintained by the Water Corporation. As it happens, the head honcho for the state run utility and pipeline provider is a former Bord Gáis engineer who was deeply impressed by what he discovered in Western Australia. Irish Scene introduced readers to Pat Donovan back in March 2020. Pat – originally from Co. Offaly – and his now wife Mary came to Australia in 2001 on a one year working holiday visa, with the possibility of a move Down Under sitting at the back of their minds. “After several months of travel around Australia, starting in Darwin and coming down the east coast, we undertook a road trip to rival no other across the Nullabor and arrived in Perth on Christmas Eve 2001 after a stopover in Kalgoorlie,” Pat told Irish Scene. “I remember then being both curious and impressed by the significant contribution of Irishmen to the gold rush, including Paddy Hannan, and of course the engineering achievements of CY O’Connor.” The couple continued on their Down Under adventure and when they returned to Ireland they put the wheels in motion to return on a more permanent basis. They arrived back to Perth in 2003 on the same day as the Melbourne Cup. The next day, Pat started work with gas company Alinta and would go on to head up ATCO Gas Australia. He joined Water Corp in May 2018 as General Manager Operations, a role that put him Pat Donovan & Sue Murphy in charge of the utility’s activities across more than 2.6 million square kilometres of Western Australia. He obviously made a good impression because before the year was out he was announced at the replacement for CEO Sue Murphy who had held the job for the previous decade, starting from January 2019 on a contract due to expire in December 2023.

Left: The Kalgoorlie Pipeline today. Right: During its construction

Pat had just turned 17 when he started engineering studies at Trinity College Dublin and he graduated in 1991 with a degree in mechanical engineering. When he graduated in the early 1990’s many of his counterparts were forced to leave Ireland to find employment opportunities but he was lucky enough to be accepted as a graduate engineer with Bord Gais, where he remained until he made the move to Perth in 2003. “At the time I was Maintenance Manager for the greater Dublin area and east coast of Ireland,” he added. “However, earlier in my time there I was a pipeline engineer and the very first “big” pipeline I managed was the construction of a 15km pipeline to Leixlip to supply gas to the newly constructed Intel factory. Not on the same scale as the Goldfields Pipeline I grant you, but it had its challenges nonetheless traversing urban, farmland, golf courses, crossed the River Liffey twice and the main Dublin - Galway rail line before arriving at Intel. Quite the adventure for a 23 year old engineer!”. He is also passionate and proud of the pipeline, its heritage and feels a special connection to it. “The Goldfields Pipeline holds a special place in the hearts of most Western Australians, as it certainly does with the employees of the Water Corporation,” he said. “It is an iconic, heritage listed and still fully functioning engineering marvel that opened up the Goldfields at the turn of the last century and continues to support the economic and social development of the region to this day. “The fact that it was the vision and determination of an Irish engineer CY O’Connor, who ultimately gave his life to turning the pipe dream into a

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reality, is not lost on me, another Irish engineer, who, working alongside the incredibly talented people at Water Corporation remain committed to ensuring the pipeline will continue to be here for generations to come. It is such an important part of WA’s history and like so many other significant engineering and infrastructure projects that opened up new frontiers the world over, the Irish were found to be at the forefront of building those projects and putting down their roots in their newfound homeland. The Goldfields Pipeline remains to this day our largest single asset and is a critical asset supplying over 100,000 people in the Goldfields and surrounding agricultural farmlands areas. It gets a lot of attention at Water Corporation - from the Boardroom all the way to our pipeline operators who ensure it delivers safe reliable water to our customers 24/7. “I have spent time with our maintenance crews as they performed repairs to the pipeline, and visited a workshop we still have in Northam with a team dedicated to fabricating repair fittings unique to the pipeline, which our welders install on the pipeline to take care of leaks when they occur. However, the most poignant moment for me was when I visited Mt Charlotte Reservoir in Kalgoorlie, the end of the Goldfields Pipeline, and read the historical information that is on display at the lookout, including photos of the official opening of the Goldfields Water Supply Scheme on 23 January 1903 by then Premier Sir John Forrest. It really hit me that CY O’Connor never got to see the completion of his beloved pipeline, and also little did he know that some 120 years later it would still be supplying water to Kalgoorlie and beyond.” As a passenger on the Prospector to Kalgoorlie it is next or near impossible not to spend long bouts of time gazing out the window looking at the changing landscape. A regular sight too along much of the route is the GWSS pipeline running through the countryside. There is plenty of time on the seven hour train trip to think about O’Connor and the many men and hardships that must have gone into making the pipeline a possibility. There is something else to think about it in the West Australian that day (October 16). At the back of the newspaper there is a Water Corp notice asking for public comment about its proposal to bury – for a variety of reasons – much of the pipeline over the next fifty years. It is a complex project and complicated question but at face value it seems a shame to hide this incredible lifeline and link to the past.

HOW THE GOLDFIELDS ALMOST BROKE FREE FROM AUSTRALIA

Kirwan had a huge impact on Australian politics, public affairs and journalism. As editor of the Kalgoorlie Miner the Irishman informed “Goldfielders of their political, social and legal rights,” wrote Jan Mayman* in a profile of him, published on the Australian Media Hall of Fame site. As well as coming from around the world, a large number of the prospectors in WA’s Goldfields originated from the eastern states. They felt disgruntled at their lack of rights and facilities in the Goldfields and that the concern’s of the government of Premier John Forrest were with the population of Perth. There was another reason to dislike his administration explains Mayman. “Hostility to Premier John Forrest’s conservative rule ran deep on the Goldfields. The notorious “ten-foot’ law banning alluvial miners from digging deeper than ten feet was a gift to big gold mining companies, sparking widespread unrest among miners in the late 1890s. For the miners, Federation represented fairer political representation in Western Australia, affirming their links with friends and family in the eastern colonies. By 1899, opposition to the Forrest Government inspired moves for separation of the Eastern Goldfields from the rest of Australia, to create a new state in the desert called “Auralia”. Kirwan’s fiery writing led to a petition to Queen Victoria to separate the Eastern Goldfields from Western Australia, if WA did not join the new national Federation. The miners sent their appeal to the Queen in a gold-mounted casket. Under pressure from London, Forrest finally agreed to a referendum, and more than half the Yes vote came from the Goldfields. Kirwan campaigned passionately and successfully for many other progressive causes, including a trans-Australian railway.” *Janice Mayman was a highly respected journalist who worked as a freelancer for The Sunday Times, The Age, The Canberra Times, The Guardian and The Independent, amongst other mast-heads, writing hard hitting stories about indigenous affairs. She won a Gold Walkley in 1984 for exposing the

death in custody of a teenage Aboriginal boy called John Pat in Roebourne, Western Australia. In the last couple of years Jan contacted me by phone at the POST Newspaper on a number of occasions, supportive of my reporting about the way the $65m Forrest Hall development at UWA was ushered through the planning process and against the objections of many in the local and even UWA communities. Jan had strong Irish roots and some great stories about her ancestors, tales I was encouraging her to write and share with Irish Scene readers. Sadly that will never happen. She died on August 5, aged 80. Vale Jan Mayman!

AUSTRALIA’S MOST CONTROVERSIAL POLITICIAN WAS AN OFFALY MAN

It is 120 years now since the former British colonies came together to create the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901, the birth of modern day Australia. That ambitious political project may have floundered without the inclusion of the then Swan colony, but for the yes vote of the Goldfields prospectors. Since then there have been hundreds of people elected to the national parliament and countless scandals and crises, but in all that time there has only ever been one elected member of parliament who has been actually expelled by a vote of the house! That unique honour is held by one Hugh Mahon (left), who was the member for Kalgoorlie at the time. Born at Killurin, near Tullamore, Co. Offaly (then known as King’s County) Mahon was a journalist, printer and editor who had an interesting life before he made an impression on Australian politics. During the 1880’s he was the editor of the New Ross Standard and was also active and influential in the Irish National Land League, which wanted to help poor farmers and tenants own their own land and farms and abolish landlordism. For his efforts he was arrested and detained alongside other Land League activists and leaders – including Charles Stewart Parnell – in Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin. But in 1882 because of ill health Mahon was released from prison and moved to Australia, where he was employed within the Land League movement here. When John and William Redmond visited Australia a year later to raise funds for the newly formed Irish National League, Mahon organised their tour of the continent. Mahon moved west to the Swan Colony in 1895 to join a colleague working on newspapers in the Goldfields. Indeed the men set up the Menzies Miner in what was then a boom town, two days out of Kalgoorlie. A few years later Mahon became editor of the Kalgoorlie Sun. The paper – a Sunday title – was produced with high quality written pieces to be read out loud to inform large groups of people and to be expose social abuses. The Kalgoorlie Sun was frequently critical of the Forrest government and helped to reveal government corruption. One person who knew him well said: “Mahon could put more venom into a stick of type than any man I ever knew. Mahon’s headlines were masterpieces of alliteration and venom”. A typical example of such a headline – on a story that was highly critical of the premier – read: “In the Clutches of Corruption/Land of Forrests, Fakes and Frauds/Some Instances of Robbery and Jobbery”. Despite carving out a reputation amongst readers and rivals for being an outspoken commentator Mahon traded journalism for politics. Like Kirwan, he was elected to the newly established federal parliament in 1901, as a Labor member fo Coolgardie and for Kalgoorlie in 1913 and within a year he was appointed as minister for external affairs and came close to

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securing the powerful role of treasurer in the government of the day. In 1920 Mahon’s fiercely nationalistic views about Ireland’s fight for independence collided with his high profile position as a public servant of the Commonwealth of Australia, and the Crown. The clash was triggered by the death in a London prison of the hunger striking Sinn Fein Lord Mayor of Cork Terence McSwiney on October 25, 1920. As the President of the Irish Ireland League, Mahon organised and led a public meeting in Melbourne to discuss the crisis, at which he gave a fiery and emotive speech. “Alderman McSwiney’s… poor widow sobbed over his coffin,” Mahon is reported to have said. “If there was a just God in heaven that sob would reach around the world, and one day would shake the foundations of this bloody and accursed Empire.” The tone and language of Mahon’s speech proved to be too much for the British born Australian Prime Minister of the day, Billy Hughes and many others who likened it to treason. Australia’s sacrifices and loss of a generation of young men in World War I The PM personally led the charge against Mahon. “I move – that, in the opinion of this House, the honourable member for Kalgoorlie, the Hon. Hugh Mahon, having, by seditious and disloyal utterances at a public meeting on Sunday last, been guilty of conduct unfitting him to remain a member of this House, and inconsistent with the oath of allegiance which he has taken as a member of this House, be expelled this House.” The issue dominated the national parliament over the course of two days (November 11/12 1920). The House declared Mahon’s seat (Kalgoorlie) to be vacant and he was expelled from the House. A by-election was held on December 18 to fill the seat and Mahon contested it for the Labor Party, but failed to get elected. Feelings ran so deep about the issue that when Mahon died eleven years later and a motion of condolence was raised at parliament – a courtesy extended to all former parliamentarians – some members objected to the suggestion he should be recognised by the parliament. “Mahon’s expulsion is the only occasion on which either House of the Commonwealth Parliament has expelled one of its members,” an article on the Parliament of Australia website for the 100th anniversary of the affair in November 2020 said. For the next seventy years, both the House and Senate wielded the authority to expel parliamentarians but never took that step again. The Parliamentary Privileges Act of 1987 removed that power. It stated: “A House does not have the power to expel a member from membership of the House.” The fundamental change to the rule book was proposed in 1984 in the final report of the Joint Select Committee on Parliamentary Privileges. “The Committee considered that the Mahon expulsion was a case of the power to expel being ‘demonstrably misused’, and that it also revealed the unavoidable danger of that power being abused for partisan purposes,” the article stated. At least one modern day MP is determined to ensure the lesson of what happened to Mahon is not forgotten. Josh Wilson, the Labor member for Fremantle in the House of Reps, has spoken about its significance in parliament on several occasions. On the 100th anniversary of his expulsion last year, Wilson described it as a serious injustice and a dangerous misstep in the early life of the parliament. “Essentially Hugh Mahon was expelled for daring to criticise the British Empire and its conduct in Ireland. It was a time when the issue carried a feverish charge and there was in Australia a transplanted sectarian divide between different parts of the Christian faith. Now that prejudice has significantly abated, but there will always be new forms of misunderstanding and prejudice.” ☘