A song from the pen of Alan Ferguson - half of The Settlers (with Sean Roche) from Western Australia.

An important story in WA's history; an amazing feat of engineering - and not the only one from the Irishman, Charles Yelverton O'Connor. Pity he was driven to suicide (in March 1902) before he was proven a hero.

The pipeline project commenced in 1898 and was completed in 1903, with the water being successfully pumped from Mundaring Weir in the Darling Ranges near Perth, to the Kalgoorlie/Coolgardie Goldfields, a distance of nearly 600kilometres.

From The Settlers' 1979 album "Bound for Western Australia" for WA's 150th anniversary celebrations ...

KALGOORLIE PIPELINE

music : trad Irish

chorus : Way over the desert, the daylight is fading
The camp fires grow bright at the close of the day
And over the Darlings, our loved ones are waiting
Beyond the Great Ocean, in Ireland far away.


Way out in the diggings, the miners are toiling
Dry blowing gold in the bright blazing sun
They're cursing the price of the water they're drinking
And praying O'Connor will get the job done.

300 miles we have toiled for O'Connor
Swinging our hammers and heaving the lines
A desert in front and a pipeline behind us
And C. Y. O'Connor will get there in time.

chorus :
Political wrangles have led to this pipeline
And I cursed the day that I joined on meself
To Kalgoorlie, soon, the water is flowing
But that damned Irish foreman will see me in Hell.

From Mundaring we're known as the wild pipeline navvies
We sing and we booze 'round the campfire at night
Through all the long days of typhoid and sickness
Laying this pipeline for O'Connor's lone fight.

chorus :
Way over the desert, the daylight is fading
The camp fires grow bright at the close of the day
And over the Darlings, our loved ones are waiting
Beyond the Great Ocean, in Ireland far away.

Note : a biography of C.Y.O'Connor by Tony Evans, was published last year in WA (C.Y.O'Connor : His Life and Legacy) but I've not managed to locate a copy yet.
C.Y. was part of New Zealand's history too ...

Cheers! RJB