Searching for a pot of gold in Turlough
By Johnny Mee
"THERE’S gold in them thar hills" is a famous quotation from Mark Twain’s 1892 novel, The American Claimant.
Close on 100 years ago hundreds of Mayo people were convinced there was gold in a lake and river close to Turlough village. One expert in the gold mining business claimed the time was ripe to study the possibility of extracting gold from the bed of a lake in Turlough.
In the past older folk in the village firmly believed there was a large amount of gold in the river. An old man by the man of Roach said he had heard his grandfather speak of the gold in the lake.
A local man in the 1930s felt there were many people in the Turlough and Ballyvary areas who were enterprising enough to locate the gold and bring it to the surface.
"I have been told of a goldrush in Turlough over one hundred years ago but I cannot get any information as to how the crock of gold came to be in the lake or river bed," he told his pals in Bob McQuaig’s pub in Turlough.
It appeared the gold settled somewhere between the lake opposite the residence of the Fitzgerald family and a number of old buildings near a bridge on the Keelogues road.
The depth of the river around this area is unknown but it is generally accepted that in the driest of years the bed of this portion of the river has never been seen even though other parts of the river bed are quite visible.
In the late 1800s seventy machines were brought over from England for the purpose of raising the pot of gold. However, the operators of the machines hit a blank and there was no sign of the gold.
A renowned diver was brought down from Dublin to assist in the search for the gold but all he found were discarded pots and pans and a piece of equipment that may have been used in the manufacture of poteen.
An old-time resident of Turlough said the search for the gold should be taken up by Mayo County Council.
"There is gold in the river close to Turlough and I have no doubt about that," he told Bernie Gillespie of The Connaught Telegraph in the late 1940s.
The man said there was a lot of mystery surrounding the so-called pot of gold in Turlough river and it was time to settle it one way or another.
It is hard to separate fact from fiction in the case of the so-called pot of gold resting in the waters around Turlough. We’ll leave it at that. The mystery of Turlough’s pot of gold remains . . . a mystery.
The people of Turlough may not have discovered the elusive gold but they have come up with something much more important than anything money can buy: a sense of pride in the local community.