Corn Mill, Dromgarriff By.), Co. Cork

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Mills

Corn Mill, Dromgarriff By.), Co. Cork

On the roadside just north of Ballinascarty, on the banks of the Owenkeagh river, a partially destroyed corn mill still rises to four storeys, its L-shaped frame holding its ground long after the water that once drove it has gone.

The mill race, the artificial channel cut to direct river water onto the wheel, has been dry for some time, leaving only the 2.6-metre-wide wheel pit and its bearing-stones along the southern elevation as evidence of the machinery that once turned here.

Corn mills like this one were a fixture of rural Irish life from the medieval period onward, processing grain into flour and meal for local communities. This example, built to a substantial four storeys, would have been a significant undertaking, and the attached miller's house to the east suggests it operated as a working household as well as an industrial site. The wheel pit's bearing-stones, the shaped stone supports that held the axle of the waterwheel in place, are among the more legible surviving details, offering a sense of the mechanical logic that once ran through the whole structure.

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Pete F
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