Qualla: Leinster Nickel Mine https://qualla.com/leinster-nickel-mine en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:26 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/q/e/j/c/leinster-nickel-mine-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Leinster Nickel Mine https://qualla.com/leinster-nickel-mine Leinster Nickel Mine: Introduction https://qualla.com/leinster-nickel-mine/ Photo credit Calistemon, CC BY-SA 3.0. Five men climbed into an ore bucket at the Perseverance shaft on 27 April 1977, and the winder that should have lowered them gently let the bucket fall instead. They dropped thirty-five metres. All five died. This was before the mine had even properly opened, and it set a grim precedent for a place that would test the limits of deep, hard, remote work for the next half-century. Leinster became one of Australia's most important nickel mines and built an entire town to house its workforce, 982 kilometres from Perth in the red heart of the Northern Goldfields. Its story is one of immense wealth wrenched from the ground, and of the human price that wealth has always carried.

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Image: Calistemon | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/e/j/c/leinster-nickel-mine-wp/qejc-leinster-nickel-mine-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Leinster Nickel Mine: A Town Built for a Mine https://qualla.com/leinster-nickel-mine/ Photo credit Calistemon, CC BY-SA 3.0. The nickel here was found in 1971 by Western Selcast, and developing such a deposit in country this remote demanded everything be built from scratch. The Agnew Mining Company was formed in 1974, underground work began mid-decade, and a town rose alongside the mine to house the pe...

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Image: Calistemon | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/e/j/c/leinster-nickel-mine-wp/qejc-leinster-nickel-mine-a-town-built-for-a-mine.mp3 0:06 2 full Leinster Nickel Mine: Riding the Nickel Rollercoaster https://qualla.com/leinster-nickel-mine/ Photo credit Calistemon, CC BY-SA 3.0. Nickel is a commodity of violent extremes, and Leinster has been whipsawed by every swing. The price tells the story better than any narrative. When the mine was shut in the mid-1980s, nickel had collapsed to about US$1.70 a pound; by the time it reopened in 1989, the price had s...

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Image: Calistemon | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/e/j/c/leinster-nickel-mine-wp/qejc-leinster-nickel-mine-riding-the-nickel-rollercoaster.mp3 0:06 3 full Leinster Nickel Mine: The Cost Underground https://qualla.com/leinster-nickel-mine/ Photo credit Calistemon, CC BY-SA 3.0. The 1977 tragedy was not the only one. In 1981 a man was killed in an underground cave-in. On 11 December 1985, two miners died of asphyxiation below ground, the second while trying to rescue the first, a detail that says everything about the bonds formed in such work. In April 2...

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Image: Calistemon | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/e/j/c/leinster-nickel-mine-wp/qejc-leinster-nickel-mine-the-cost-underground.mp3 0:06 4 full Leinster Nickel Mine: From the Pit to the World https://qualla.com/leinster-nickel-mine/ Photo credit Calistemon, CC BY-SA 3.0. At full tilt, Leinster fed an industrial chain stretching the width of Western Australia. Nickel sulphide ore came from open pits and deep underground; concentrate was dried and railed to the Kalgoorlie smelter, then on to the Kwinana refinery, where it was finished into nickel m...

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]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/e/j/c/leinster-nickel-mine-wp/qejc-leinster-nickel-mine-from-the-pit-to-the-world.mp3 0:06 5 full