Paddy Burke
Patrick Joseph “Paddy” Burke was born on 1 August 1879 at Merriwa, New South Wales, to Thomas and Anne Burke. He married Elsie Florence Hall at Walgett in 1908, and they had three children.
Paddy Burke was an early opal miner at Lightning Ridge, living on the Angledool field in 1907. By 1908 he was mining on The Flat. We have records of his Miner’s Right in 1909.
In 1921 John Landers made note that Paddy was as mining at the Three Mile, where he was part of the rush on Lunatic Hill. Later, in 1927–28, Paddy was working at the Grawin, where he found The Sunset Queen, a stone that broke into four large chips of about 70 carats each.
In 1928, Burke made a donation of one pound to the Archbishop’s Fund for building St. Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney.
In 1931, Paddy and his brother Happy Jack found a small field just south of the Lightning Ridge village, later known as Burke’s Rush or Paddy Burke’s Field. Although the ground produced promising traces of nobbies, there was very little colour found, and the field was soon largely abandoned.
Paddy Burke died on 25 April 1947 at Narrabri, New South Wales, aged 67, and was buried at Tamworth.
Article: Research by Russell Gawthorpe and Leisa Carney, edited by Russell Gawthorpe. LRHS research compiled by Len Cram and Barbara Moritz. Sources: ‘Large Opal, Found Near Walgett, valued at £1000’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 16 July 1928, p. 12; ‘Building Saint Mary’s’, The Catholic Press, 19 July 1928, p. 21; ‘Said That’, The Wingham Chronicle and Manning River Observer, 24 July 1928, p. 2; ‘A Large Opal’, The Toowoomba Chronicle and Darling Downs Gazette, 18 July 1928, p. 6; The Lightning Ridge Book, Stuart Lloyd, 1967, p. 68; Lightning Ridge - The Home of the Black Opal: Unique to the World, Gan Bruce, 1983, pp. 87.