[1] James Venture Mulligan was born in 1837 at County Down, Ireland, to a Protestant family who rented farming land in Slievenaboley.

Details of his early years in Australia are not clear, but it is thought he unsuccessfully attempted to join the Burke and Wills expedition from Melbourne, then travelled to New South Wales, to Nundle, Glen Innes and Armidale, where he is thought to have opened a butcher's shop and first tried his hand at prospecting.

On 29 April 1875 he led a government-sponsored expedition which passed the future sites of Mareeba and Atherton, crossed the Herberton Range and discovered tin in the Wild River, but found little gold.

Though geologically similar to the rich alluvial finds on the Palmer River, the Hodgkinson supported mainly reef mining, and disappointed miners blamed Mulligan for their misfortunes on the field.

He led another government sponsored expedition in 1882, prospecting at the Millstream, Wild River, Emu Creek near Irvinebank and Silver Valley.

In 1903, aged in his early 60's, Mulligan married Fanny Bulls, a widower from the Palmer goldfield, and they settled in Mount Molloy, then a bustling "twin town" with one township close to the copper mines and another servicing John Moffat's smelters where the town of Mount Molloy stands today.

Conflicting accounts of the fight place it in Jimmy Forsyth's pub midway between the two towns, now marked by a large mango tree on the left of Bakers Road, or as reported in the Cairns Morning Post on 27 August 1907, at Mount Carbine, north of Mount Molloy.

The Cairns Morning Post records Mulligan was buried "in the little cemetery at Mount Molloy" the Saturday following his death.

His lively diaries, published regularly in The Queenslander were re-published in 1875 as "A guide to the Palmer River and Normanby goldfields".

[1] Mulligan maintained an association with Mount Molloy throughout its development, having led the first prospecting expedition through the area and later acquiring the copper mining claim in partnership with James Forsyth.

[1] The site has ongoing significance to the community as evidenced by the placement of a bronze plaque and other commemorative activities at the plot.

The ground appears hard and stony and little grass cover was evident at the time of inspection in October 2003.

[1] James Venture Mulligan's Grave in the Mount Molloy Cemetery was listed on the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992 having satisfied the following criteria.

[1] The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history.

James Venture Mulligan was closely associated with the discovery and opening of the Palmer goldfields, which was to provide considerable stimulus for the development of North Queensland in the late nineteenth century.

James Venture Mulligan's grave is the most direct and tangible reminder of the man and his life with its long associations with the mining history of North Queensland.