Pluck Mills, County Donegal

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Detached multiple-bay three-storey former corn mill, built c. 1860 and possibly containing the fabric of an earlier mill to site, c. 1800. Not out of use and derelict. Pitched roof, now collapsed, having remains of cut stone eaves course. Rubble stone walls. Segmental-headed window openings having stone sills, red brick voussoirs, and remains of multiple-pane metal windows with timber frames. Square-headed doorways and loading bays having red brick voussoirs and remains of battened timber doors. Remains of metal machinery and millstones to site. Located to the east bank of the Isle Burn in the rural countryside to the south-west of Manorcunningham.

The impressive remains of a substantial three-storey water powered former corn mill of mid-nineteenth century date. It is robustly-built using local rubble stone masonry while the red brick voussoirs to the openings are a feature of many mid-to-late nineteenth century mills and outbuildings. It retains the remains of battened timber doors and metal windows to the openings, which are features found at many contemporary industrial sites. This mill was originally powered by water diverted from the Isle Burn to the west and stored in a mill pond to the south. Cartographic evidence suggests (Ordnance Survey twenty-five inch map of c. 1905) suggests that it may have had internal waterwheel(s). Of technical interest is the survival of much of the machinery to site, albeit in a dilapidated condition. This building provides an interesting historical insight into past industrial process and a period when a great deal of small-scale industrial enterprise was carried out in the rural Irish countryside, and is an element of the built and industrial heritage of Donegal. This mill was in the ownership of an Alexander Lecky in 1881 and 1894 (Slater’s Directory) who was a grain and flax merchant, and miller. There was formerly a small-scale flax mill to the south of site, now demolished or ruinous. The arrangement of a corn and flax mill to the same site is a phenomenon that was mainly found in Ulster, and this is one of a number of examples of this in Donegal. The earlier mill to site, part of which may be contained within this building was in the ownership of a Sir Edmund Hayes in 1836 (Ordnance Survey Memoirs) whose tenants were bound to have grain ground here at a rate of ‘the 25th grain’ with other persons charged at ‘the 35th grain’.

From the Buildings of Ireland (National Inventory of Architectural Heritage) record 40905455

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Photo credits

National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
Steven Brown, Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
Ian S, Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
Sitomon, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
Eeno11, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0
Kenneth Allen, Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
P L Chadwick, Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
Andreas F. Borchert, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
Kenneth Allen, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0

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