Site of Old Mill, Clocully, Co. Tipperary

Co. Tipperary |

Mills

Site of Old Mill, Clocully, Co. Tipperary

In the middle of the River Suir near Clocully, a flat, flood-prone island sits under pasture with no visible trace of the mill that once gave it its name.

What makes the spot quietly puzzling is not just the absence of any ruins, but the way the historical cartographic record complicates even the most basic question of where, exactly, the mill stood.

The first Ordnance Survey six-inch map, published in 1840, labels the island as the "Site of Old Mill", suggesting the structure was already gone or derelict by that point. Yet the same map appears to depict the mill building not on the island itself but in the river immediately to the east, implying it may have sat in the water rather than on dry ground, perhaps as a mill built over a channel or millrace. By the time the second edition was produced between 1904 and 1905, the feature is shown simply as a small island. The current Ordnance Survey Ireland base map indicates that the island has since been enlarged eastward, apparently incorporating the area where the mill once stood surrounded by water. In other words, the ground has quietly swallowed its own history: what was once a separate, water-encircled structure is now indistinguishably part of the island itself, grassed over and given to grazing. The island measures roughly 240 metres north to south and 95 metres east to west, modest in scale but large enough to have supported agricultural use once the land was stabilised.

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Pete F
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