THE QUIN Historical Group are holding a free talk in Ennis to remember the Clare discoverer of an Australian gold mine worth more than $1,100 million.
by Dearbhla Parry
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the death of the late Quin resident and initiator of the greatest gold rush in Australia, Patrick ‘Paddy’ Hannan, who passed away in November of 1925.
Ann Lawlor of Quin Heritage will be making a presentation on the life of Paddy Hannan in the De Valera Library, Ennis, on Friday, October 10th at 1:30pm.
Hannan was born on April 26th, 1840, at Gorteen, Dangan, and moved six kilometres east of Quin to Ballyroughan in 1843. He emigrated to Australia in 1863 to try his hand at prospecting, working in the Ballarat and Bendigo gold fields in Victoria, and later moved to New Zealand. Six years later, he returned to Australia and spent time at several gold-digging centres across the country, without much success.
In 1889, he was among the first wave of miners in Western Australia. He and two fellow Irishmen, Thomas Flanagan from Ennis and Daniel O’ Shea from Cork, decided to try their luck east of Coolgardie town. In June of 1893, Hannan discovered some stray gold ingots on the scrubland surface. He and his colleagues lodged their claim at the police station in Coolgardie, and news of their gold discovery quickly spread. The local gold field became known as the ‘Golden Mile’ and was deemed the ‘richest square mile in the world’. In time, Government agencies constructed piped water, which encouraged farming and agriculture, and developed a new rail line from Perth.
The Kalgoorlie gold field is still active 132 years after Patrick Hannan’s initial find. Mining there is on a huge industrial scale, with pits running hundreds of metres deep and gold still being found to this day.
Patrick Hannan received an annual pension of $150 from the Government of Western Australia in acknowledgement of his founder role, and over time, civic offices, the railway station, and a statue on Kalgoorlie’s Main Street were named after him. He lived out his life in Melbourne in the care of his cousins and died there at the age of 82.
Hannan and his discovery have been celebrated in Ireland since. There is a memorial to Patrick Hannan in Quin and plaques in Gorteen. In 1988, the Kalgoorlie Town Council commissioned local artist Gary Zeck to create a bust of Patrick Hannan to be presented to the Clare County Council in the De Valera Library, Ennis. Councillor Lorna Mitchell’s presentation was part of the Fleadh Nua’s celebrations. In 1993, to mark the centenary of Patrick Hannan’s find, Tess Thomson and many of the Councillors from Kalgoorlie visited Clare for the launch of her book ‘Claim to Fame’ about Hannan.
