When mills were a vital part of Sligo

THE IMPORTANCE OF MILLS IN THE HISTORY OF SLIGO IS LOOKED AT IN THIS FEATURE BY LOCAL HISTORIAN PADRAIC FEEHILY WHO RECOUNTS HOW THE TOWN DEVELOPED AROUND THEM AND HOW THEY CAN BE TRACED BACK TO THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

ALL towns begin at a meeting of ways. At across roads, ora sin Sligo, where there is a crossing of river and road. Two different elements, l and and water meeting. Thus human activity shapes itself around these polarities. From this crossway an energy of trade and human interchange springs exploiting the natural forces of nature.

Our history has focused much on the success and failure of the humble potato and little on how critical milling was to sustain the health of human and livestock alike.

For centuries grain was ground in mills that were water driven by the natural force of gravity: the original green energy grains such as oats, wheat and barley were cooked either as porridge or bread.

The most common form being flatbread made from ground oats. The early mills were built between the early 8th and 10 th century. Here our ancestors along the Garavogue River in Sligo understood deeply the intrinsic value of the environment in providing them and sustaining them in their natural surroundings.

The original method of milling cereal crops involved the physical turning of rotary stones which required great physical effort for small returns. It was, in the main, associated with small-scale domestic production.

Long seen as being on the periphery of European technological development Ireland has confounded many by producing the earliest evidence of water-powered grain mills in the post-Roman world. Archaeological evidence shows that, a water-mill existed on the site of the Glasshouse Hotel back to Elizabethan times and it’s likely that a water wheel formed part of the abbey complex further up river.

From the 17 th century there are references to milling rights in what was known as “the Castle Quarter”. The area in reality included Sligo town, Kilmacowen and Killaspugbrone.

The laws were those by which was established the privilege (royal or otherwise) to landowners the sole power of building and working corn mills that bound the tenant to yield all the grinding custom of his land to the landlord’s mill. In substance the mills were maintained by the landowners (or landlords) solely as a valuable source of income.

The mills at the bridge passed down to the Martin family, believed to be of Scottish origin and were successfully worked by them for over a century. In 1889 the mills were turning over £330,000 a year in today’s money. In the early 1860s the business was in the ownership of Messrs Middleton and Pollexfen.

In a notice of Bill of Sale of the business at the time, the mills were described as consisting of a flour mill with two undershot wheels and four pairs of stones. The undershot wheels were vertically mounted and rotated when the water struck the blades at the bottom quarter fed by water trapped between the weir and the embankment on the west side fed by the Garavogue River.

Within the same building complex were a corn and oatmeal mill with extensive storing and drying kilns. In 1878 the average weekly output was 150 tons of maize meal and 250 sacks of flour.

Following the death of William Middleton in 1882, the mills were bought out by the Pollexfen family and over the next three decades the business was highly profitable under the management of Arthur Jackson. The mill wheels operated at low water but twice a day at high tide the wheels were static due to the equal pressure from the inflow of the Garavogue and the upcoming tide from the Sligo river.

Here management installed a Crossley gas engine with suction plant, allowing the mill to continue to function 24 hours a day, even at very low water in summertime.

At the turn of the new century machinery was installed for the manufacture of maize meal and coarse feeding stuffs for animals with an output of 100 tons a day. Jackson, though he represented the mercantile interests, was an outstanding businessman and contributed much to the success of Sligo town as the capital of the North West. However in 1924, for operational reasons it was decided to transfer the business to the mills at Ballisodare.

Alf Carroll, a Dublin man, a fitter and refrigeration engineer took over the Mill in the early years of WWII. Fr John Carroll, his son, recalls his first visit to the mill.

“During the early forties Strandhill was our home. My father, Alf Carroll, took me on my first journey to town. There was a small saddle for

me on the bar of his bicycle. He was bringing me to see the Mill.

“This, for me, was discovery on a major scale; a world of buildings with countless windows and doors and with rooftops almost up to the sky. Inside there were steep wooden stairs leading to places where the nutty smell of grain sacks still lingered. And where there were electric lights.

“But there was also the clatter of toolboxes and the clang of metal: our Dad and his friends were hard at work. Old machinery was being repaired, new machinery was taking shape – and the walls of future cold-rooms were being lined with slabs of cork for insulation.

“To one side there was this mighty river, churning its way to the sea: to the other side there was the stillness of the Mill Pond. Between these were the two turbines, rumbling again after years of idleness. Linked with the turbines, a long overhead shaft drove, in turn, the compressors required for refrigeration.

“Getting into the completed cold-rooms meant, for my brother Frank and myself, being allowed to enter by a door of enormous size and weight. It had to be closed immediately and never left open. The air felt wonderfully warm when you came out.

“Large numbers of wooden boxes, each containing fifty-six pounds of butter (in bulk form) were brought in from local creameries to be stored at low temperatures, en route to the U.K. by rail and sea.

“Ice was in demand. It was needed to preserve fish for export. So there was now this deep tank – like the work pit in a garage – in which brine circulated and heavy steel moulds were suspended until the water they contained turned into ice.

“Our favourite memory is of sitting on top of a stack of cold butter boxes, holding on to the ropes and watching Jack Hanney’s great carthorse hauling us all, in stately clip-clop along the quays to the goods train.

“After a decade operating the mill, Alf transferred his skills upriver to the Riverside, where he restored an even older mill that lay idle for a century or more. Older readers will remember the lovely ice cream produced here, some sold off a specially fitted-out bicycle by Mr Georgie Holmes.”

Many thanks to Dr. Colin Rynne, Archaeologist, University College, Cork, for permission to use the drawing of First Millennium Mill and to Local Studies Sligo Library, Bridge Street.

The site excavations took place on the site of the present Glasshouse Hotel in 2005 under the supervision of Dylan G. Foley, Archeologist. Special thanks to Father John Carroll for his interest and contribution to this story.

"ICE WAS IN DEMAND. IT WAS NEEDED TO PRESERVE FISH FOR EXPORT. SO THERE WAS NOW THIS DEEP TANK LIKE THE WORK PIT IN A GARAGE"