Tide mill - unclassified

The National Monuments Service's description

At the S end of Shamullen Channel on the foreshore at Carrowmore townland on the inner reaches of Galway Bay. Holt (1911-12, 251) recorded the site of a tidal mill here and noted that the millstones were said to be extant. Following Storm Eleanor in January 2018, a millstone (Wth 0.59-0.64m T 0.33-0.34m), which had been partially exposed prior to the storm, became more fully exposed revealing that over half of it survived. While broken in the past, enough remained to indicate that it was an upper stone fashioned from pink granite. Half of the central perforation (diam. 0.18m), which is straight sided and smooth, survives. The fragment indicates that the overall diameter of the stone was between c. 1.18m and 1.28m. A narrow rebate visible inside the lip of the perforation was designed to take the ‘bridge’, a device which positioned the drive-shaft and facilitated the rotation of the stone. On present evidence it is not possible to determine whether the mill was a horizontal or vertical mill (Gosling 2018). According to local information, another millstone fragment is lodged in a nearby field wall (information from P. Gosling 12 January 2018).

Compiled by: Olive Alcock

Date of upload: 31 July 2018

References

Holt, E.W.L. 1911-12 Notes on the Ordnance Survey Letters relating to the barony of Dunkellin: iii - Ballynacourty parish. Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society 7, 205-51.

Gosling, P. 2018 Report on a millstone at Shanmullen Channel, Carrowmore townland, Oranmore, Co. Galway. Unpublished report.