One route to wealth during the 1850s and ‘60s gold rushes was uncovering a nugget or glittering seam. A much more certain alternative was owning inns on roads to the goldfields. Irish Gold tells the story of two enterprising Irish settlers, Jeremiah Lehane and Miles Murphy, who adopted the second course and, with their families, led action-packed lives in the Yass-Young region of southern NSW. The book is also a celebration of those optimistic times, and of a pioneer newspaper, the Yass Courier, that recorded them with insight and humour. There was plenty of news around: Ben Hall’s gang roamed the countryside, free selection was threatening the sway of the squatters, the attempted assassination of the Duke of Edinburgh stirred sectarian passions, a great flood devastated Yass…