Foxford Woollen Mill, Lower Main Street, Foxford, Co. Mayo

Look up and the openings shrink storey by storey, tripartite sashes at ground level tapering to plainer two-over-two windows above, so the whole facade reads as a kind of graduated tier, wide at the base and narrowing towards the roofline. It is a small optical trick achieved with an unglamorous material: the entire eleven-bay building is sheathed in corrugated iron over a cement-rendered base, a covering chosen for speed and economy rather than show, yet arranged with enough care that the result still makes what the records describe as a pleasing visual statement.

The mill was established in 1892 by Mother Mary Arsenius, born Agnes Morrogh-Bernard, who founded it with backing from the Congested Districts Board, a state body set up the previous year to relieve poverty in the west of Ireland through practical industry rather than charity alone, and from Sir James Talbot Power of Edermine in County Wexford, a member of the Powers whiskey family. The building itself is a detached, double-pile factory, meaning two parallel pitched roof ranges run side by side, giving the roof an M-shaped profile when seen end on. That roof is carried on scissor trusses, a bracing method where paired timbers cross like an open scissor to support the slates, here executed in cast iron rather than timber, an unusual and technically demanding choice for a rural Mayo factory of this date. Timber bargeboards trim the gables, cast-iron rainwater goods run along timber eaves boards, and the windows keep their original sash arrangements, four-over-four below with two-over-two sidelights, plainer two-over-two above.

Inside, the ground floor still shows its working bones: timber joists resting on cast-iron beams carried by cast-iron pillars, a straightforward but sturdy system for supporting heavy machinery. Above, the scissor truss roof is left exposed, wind-braced and lined with timber boarding, so the engineering that holds the building together is visible rather than hidden behind a ceiling. The complex was restored in 1991 and 1992, and that work kept the original form, massing, and a good deal of original fabric intact, both outside and in the repurposed interior, so the building standing today reads much as it would have to a visitor arriving on Lower Main Street in the 1890s.