Flour Mill, water mill in County Kilkenny (KK026-010022-)

Indicated as a ‘Flour Mill’ on the 1st (1839) ed. OS 6-inch map and a ‘Saw Mill’ on the 1948 revision, on the S bank of the Kings River, c. 60-80m E of the medieval town of Callan. A Down Survey (1655-6) map, ‘A Survey of the Liberties of Callan by George Marshall an exact copy by Dan[ie]l O Brien Surv[eyo]r’ (Hibernia Regnum, courtesy of Trinity College Dublin) indicates two watermills associated with Callan, one (KK026-010021-) N of the Kings River and the other (KK026-010022-) S of the river just outside the E end of the town. A century earlier, in 1556, Thomas, Earl of Ormond, grants to Sir William Wheelane, priest, ‘two water mills at Callan, one within the town and one without’ (Curtis 1941, vol. 5, 84, deed 48). Immediately N of the mill, there is a thin island (L c. 90m; max. Wth c. 10m) in the river which seems to be that referred to in a deed of 1578, whereby Thomas, Earl of Ormond, grants to Edmund Butler fitz Theobald, ‘the Inche or Iland on the east side of the mill called the new mill in the borough of Callan, lying between the course of the water running from the new mill and the old course of the river or water of the Rye, said inch being now sown with corn’ (Curtis 1941, vol. 5, 293, deed 305). This mill appears to have belonged to the Augustinian friary (KK026-010016-) as when the monastery was surrendered in 1540 it included, ‘a water-mill, then in ruins, and called the New Mill, and a small parcel of pasture ground adjacent, called the Inch, being half an acre of land of small measure’, though according to a note these ‘were concealed by Sir Thomas Butler [Earl of Ormond], Knight of the Garter’ (Moran 1876, 302-03). In 1541 the monastery was leased for 21 years to James Butler and Thomas Butler, was granted possession in 1557-58 (Curtis 1937, vol. 4, 206, deed 262; Gwynn and Hadcock 1988, 297). See attached: KK026-010022-_01 Extract from Down Survey (1655-6) map, ‘A Survey of the Liberties of Callan by George Marshall an exact copy by Dan[ie]l O Brien Surv[eyo]r’ (Hibernia Regnum, courtesy of Trinity College Dublin) KK026-010022-_02 Extract from Down Survey (1655-6) map, ‘A Survey of the Liberties of Callan by George Marshall an exact copy by Dan[ie]l O Brien Surv[eyo]r’ (Hibernia Regnum, courtesy of Trinity College Dublin) Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 22 June 2022