The one at Liscoyle, in County Galway, is among the many that have quietly slipped from everyday awareness, leaving behind little more than a place name and a monument record to mark that something once stood and worked here.

Mills of this kind typically relied on a millrace, a channel diverting water from a nearby stream or river to drive a wheel, which in turn powered the grinding stones inside. In rural Connacht, where oats formed the backbone of the diet for centuries, such structures were essential infrastructure rather than simply useful conveniences. Many were built or rebuilt during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, often by local landlords or estate agents who took a percentage of each batch ground, a system known as multure. The physical remains, where they survive, tend to include stone walls, the pit or channel for the wheel, and occasionally the millstones themselves, left behind when the machinery was stripped out or simply abandoned.