Wicklow gold rush
The Wicklow gold rush, or the Avoca gold rush, was a gold rush that began on 15 September 1795, following the discovery of gold on the northern slopes of Croghan Kinsella mountain, County Wicklow, Ireland. The unregulated period of gold collection ended with a military takeover exactly one month later, on 15 October 1795. Over the four week period, as much as 80 kilograms of gold was recovered by prospectors. It was the only recorded gold rush to have occurred on the island of Ireland.
History
Background
Ireland was the major area of gold working in Bronze Age Britain and Ireland, with Irish gold being especially well known from the Bronze Age as jewellery in the form of gold lunulae, torcs, gorgets and rings.The first gold produced in Ireland occurred c. 2500 BC during the late Neolithic/Atlantic Bronze Age, with a likely source for it having been placer mining in Ireland's rivers, including the rivers of County Wicklow and the "Gold Coast" of County Waterford. The National Museum of Ireland maintains that "although gold has been found in Ireland at a number of locations, particularly in County Wicklow and County Tyrone, it has not yet been possible to identify the ancient sources where gold was found", but that "the sites most likely to have been recognised and exploited by prehistoric people were alluvial deposits from rivers and streams".
The area around Woodenbridge where the future gold rush would occur was already traditionally known for mining, with the pits of East Avoca and their underlying workings having supported copper and sulphur production since the year 1720. The mining district in Avoca was, at that point, one of the richest in Europe, and by the 1770s, copper mines were shipping more than a hundred tons of ore annually from Wicklow. It would go on to become the most extensive mining operation in Ireland, remaining so until 1960 when it closed.
At the time, the gold was thought to have originated in a quartz vein in the mountain, but since then, studies by Riofinex in the 1990s determined that two separate bedrock sources were more likely - those of Kilmacoo-style sulphide ores, and Ballcoog-Moneyteige ironstone.
Discovery
Various claims exist as to the nature of the gold discovery in County Wicklow that ignited the 1795 gold rush. A 2007 article in New Scientist magazine claims it was a local schoolmaster named Dunaghoo who, living beyond his means, was found to have been quietly panning the Aughatinavought river for sands containing grains of gold, which he had then been selling to Dublin jewellers. McArdle also notes tales of a fisherman who, by chance, spotted a gold nugget in the river. Another story recounts how the river sediment had been worked surreptitiously by a local farming family since the 1780s, and that the family secret had been revealed by a disaffected member as revenge.New Scientist claims that the Goldmines River was known as Aughatinavought before gold was found, however IrishCentral contends that the river was called 'Ballinvally' prior to the discovery, as does a 2021 video produced by the Wicklow Heritage Office.
It is known that on 15 September 1795, workers felling timber noticed what appeared to be a piece of gold in the roots of an uprooted tree on the estate of Lord Carysfort near Woodenbridge, County Wicklow. Gold was already known to exist in the area, as were other minerals in Avoca. As McArdle notes, this was "no pinhead speck of gold, but a half-ounce piece". "We can safely assume", according to McArdle, that "the workers immediately abandoned their tiresome labours on behalf of Lord Carysfort and devoted themselves wholeheartedly to their new gold mining enterprise". Gold was classed as a "Royal metal", meaning that any found was supposed to belong by right to the Crown.
Announcement of find
Those closest to the story would have naturally been cautious to alert journalists to the find, to give themselves more time to pan, but as news spread by word of mouth, increasing numbers of prospectors arrived to the area with each passing day.The first mention of the gold find in the Freeman's Journal was a letter from Rathdrum dated 29 September 1795 which also subsequently appeared in Finn's Leinster Journal and Saunder's News-Letter. However, Finn's Leinster Journal had broken the story proper in its edition of 16-19 September in which it described the accidental discovery of the tree-fellers, but had a smaller readership than the bigger newspapers. The gold was reported to be pure, "as pure as any brought from the Gold Coast of Africa", but it is unknown whether the gold was being properly assayed by this early stage. As McArdle notes:
"One labourer was reported to have made ten guineas in two days, equivalent to more than 2.5 ounces of gold at prevailing prices "
By the end of September 1795, local correspondents were still supplying detailed and technically accurate reports to the newspaper offices from onsite at the Goldmines River, but as the weeks progressed, the journalists from the head offices were making the trip out to see the rush for themselves, tempted by the excitement.
Gold rush
Soon word reached the populated centres that gold was to be had for free and by 8 October 1795, over 1,000 people had congregated on the banks of the Goldmines River. 250-300 of these people were actively digging, while women engaged in reworking the spent gravel using bowls, which could produce previously unnoticed gold grains the size of "snipe shot".We may assume, according to McArdle, that many came from within a 15km radius or thereabouts, so that it would have been possible for them to return home each evening after panning the river. This would encompass the residents of Arklow and Aughrim as well as miners lured from the nearby Avoca copper mines. Others would have naturally travelled from Dublin, the nearest big city, and might have camped or lodged locally while engaged in their work. One person interviewed in the Freeman's Journal reflected how fortunate it had been for the country that the gold rush had come only after the harvest had been saved, "otherwise not a labourer could be engaged".
The business was extremely lucrative for whoever had the time and patience to devout hours and hours onsite panning the river, especially at the early stages of the find. As McArdle relays, "at 22 karats fine, the gold would have been sold at the prevailing price of about £4 per ounce - and sellers of the most spectacular specimens were reported to be demanding as much as £5 an ounce".
Gold is extremely dense. "It is very good at collecting in only certain places in a river, and the art of prospecting is working out where those places are, a bit like fishing", according to geologist Rob Chapman. The most fertile section for finding gold in the Goldmines River was found to be in a place named 'The Red Hole', situated below Ballinagore Bridge, which became the most coveted place to work. Stream banks were cut back steeply there, and along the whole river, by avid diggers in their attempt to find deposits.
Considering the temporary nature of a gold rush, it was considered too inefficient for prospectors to work individually, and so teams of up to eight members were being formed which could process larger volumes of materials faster. Working in teams also made the process of panning less dangerous, as the creation of unconsolidated cliffs of earth at the banks of the stream were at risk of collapse onto those below. Territorial arguments could also break out between rival groups. Each group also assigned a treasurer, who was trusted to take care of any recovered gold and negotiate its sale. Teams worked the river by night and day to retain the plot of river they had claimed, and to make the most of the time available as rumours spread of an imminent Government take-over.
Despite the excitement of the gold rush, the general order of society carried on largely as normal in the area, with Saunder's News-Letter of 5 October noting that "The fairs at Arklow and Rathdrum were numerously attended last week and had a large quantity of woollen goods for sale". English and French eyewitnesses wrote of "mountain Tartars", assaulting the mountain's "ruffian bowels" and washing what they found in "a rude manner, somewhat similar to that practised by the negroes of Africa".
By the 11 October 1795, the number of people onsite at the river had swelled to 4,000, although the majority were there for diversion. An "irregular encampment" was erected to cater for their "reception and entertainment", and as McArdle notes, "there must have been a real carnival atmosphere, probably with many entertainers soliciting contributions from onlookers. Sellers of food and drinks must have done a roaring trade", as it is not uncommon for traders to do at least as well as the gold workers themselves during a gold rush.
Newspaper correspondents reported of willing gold buyers stationed at the river, "armed with accurate weighing scales and plenty of ready cash", which would have been a tempting sight for workers. According to McArdle, more determined prospectors probably transported their gold to Dublin goldsmiths where more favourable prices could be attained, and a greater selection of buyers. One jeweller from Dublin even travelled out to the site where he "spent a week" and returned to Dublin "in possession of a 14-ounce nugget".
Human interest stories from the workings of the river began to fill the Irish newspapers, detailing tragic loss or miraculous success. One story centred around a boy from the workhouse who found a nugget valued at more than £17, and sold it to a "humane gentleman", who also included a cow for the child's mother in the bargain. Apart from the Goldmines River, gold was also to be found in the nearby Coolbawn and Clone rivers. The 10 October 1795 edition of Saunder's News-Letter reported of one William Graham Esq, living near 'Aghrim', who "lodged with the assay master of this city, thirty-five ounces and five pennyweights of gold, the produce of the gold mine in his neighbourhood, for the purpose of being assayed".
A later correspondent on the scene compared the Goldmines River minerals to those found in European gold mines, mentioning Hungarian quartz and Transylvanian pyrite in particular; the gold in the latter case being "extracted out of the pyrites, although none at first visible to the naked eye". McArdle states that the correspondent mentioned these locations with the intention of suggesting that the Goldmines River might feature "just as lucratively among the world's gold operations in the immediate future", depending on the area first being secured by the authorities, and the mother lode located. Some reporters even believed that the "golden mountain be a most important source of national prosperity" in the years to come. Alborn contends that some in Ireland may have even hoped that Wicklow's "untapped gold reserves might hold the key to their nation's independence from Britain."
The correspondent stated that he had seen many of the gold specimens at Wicklow personally, and that they were typically bright yellow, smooth and polished, although some were angular and jagged. One quartz sample he studied had been encrusted with gold, "as if it had been melted and poured on it...". McArdle speculates that the correspondent may have been the geologist Thomas Weaver, who had studied at the Bergakademie Freiberg in Germany and consequently would have been familiar with the central European mining deposits of Hungary and Romania.
Contemporary newspapers compared the findings at Wicklow to Potosí in Bolivia, at that point the world's largest silver deposit that has been mined since the sixteenth century, and also became a valuable sources of tin from the 1790s. Although Potosí was a source of silver and not gold, it gave the public an idea of the fabulous wealth that could lay in store for Ireland, and one which they could easily identify with.
It is impossible to determine just how much gold was recovered during the unregulated part of the Wicklow gold rush, such is the chaotic and frantic nature of such events. In addition to this, many prospectors typically refuse to acknowledge their finds, whereas others will exaggerate what they found, but McArdle speculates that over the four weeks as much as 80 kilograms of gold was recovered, "perhaps more than a quarter of all the gold that would eventually be found" at the site.