Windmill, Knockcorrandoo, Co. Galway
Co. Galway |
Kilns
Windmills are not what most people picture when they think of County Galway, which is part of what makes this small stone tower at Knockcorrandoo quietly arresting.
Sitting on top of a steep hillock within a forested area, with the Killaclogher River running to the north-west below, it is a circular three-storey structure, compact but solid, measuring roughly 3.35 metres in diameter and standing 5.2 metres high. The elevation would have mattered enormously to its original function, catching whatever wind came in off the surrounding landscape.
Windmills of this type, sometimes called tower mills, were built to capture reliable airflow by placing the working machinery as high as possible above ground-level obstructions. This one retains opposing doorways on its north and south faces, though the southern entrance is now partially blocked, and a rectangular window survives on the first floor above the southern doorway. That it remains in fair condition at all is notable; many such structures across Ireland were cannibalised for building stone or simply left to collapse once milling technology moved on. The presence of three storeys in such a narrow footprint suggests the interior was tightly arranged, with machinery, grain storage, and access all compressed into a tower not much wider than a modest room.