Page 98 - Greystones Archaeological Historical Society

WICKLOW GOLD

too much for the schoolmaster’s wife; others refer to a boy’s
chance discovery of further nuggets when fishing in the streams
of this lovely countryside.

At any rate, by the end of September in that year its seclusion
was at an end.

Hundreds of amateur prospectors were camped along the
river banks. Goldsmiths from Dublin had arrived with their scales.
The area was called ‘Little Peru’ and the most fruitful stream got
the name ‘Gold Mines River’.

It bears that name still as it runs its five-mile course in a north-
eastern direction towards Woodenbridge from the slopes of
Croghan Mountain on the Wicklow-Wexford border.

It is one of a number of streams running north and east off
the hillside. They lie in narrow valleys, in a district of rolling
uplands, and mingle with the waters of the Avoca at Wooden-
bridge.

Like duck-shot

The Times of London sent a correspondent to the scene in
September. He wrote:

‘I found three small streams that come down from the top of
the mountain. Where they meet is level ground and here the
people are throwing off the surface of the bog and finding gold
grains a large as duck-shot. They work in gangs of six or eight
men and each gang has a treasurer.’

A few weeks later he reports:

‘There are now at least 1,000 people here; two or three

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