Flour Mill and Kiln — Cloonakille

A water mill at Clonkill which had been leased by Edmond O'Fallon from St. John's abbey, Athlone, and developed by him, was granted to an Edward Fitzgerald in 1597. In 1703 the corn and tuck mill of Laurence Kelly was purchased by Henry St George of Athlone (Egan 1954-6, 22). In the mid 18th century the mill was owned by Richard Dillon, but by 1760 it had come into the possession of Roger Kelly of Roscommon. Between 1814 and 1837 Edward Burne was in occupation and probably developed the mill into a six-bay three-story structure known as Burnbrook Mill as marked on the 1837 and 1915 eds of the OS 6-inch map. This structure does not survive. The site of the original mill, if it was at this location, cannot be identified. Archaeological testing (04E0881) c. 80m SW of the 19th century mill, and partly on the site of its mill-pond, failed to produce any related material (O'Carroll 2007a), and further work on the location of the mill and to the E (08E0747) failed to recover evidence of an early structure (Byrne 2008c, 2011a). (Egan 2004, 75-88) Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 20th June 2011