As a prelude to Douglas Breignan’s Taproot talk – The Daily Grind – on 19 October 2025 he led a group of walkers to some significant milling sites the previous morning at 10.30. He spoke about the Mill at Balnagown before his guided walk to Baligrundle and Fiart Watermills . it was enlightening to look into the complex , and surprising history of these enigmatic ruins
Baligrundle Mill
Taproot Mill walk Douglas Breignan 18.10.2025
Miller’s Port Mill
Rosemary Barry writes:
The following day was his excellent 3,000 year trek through the history of grinding from quern to mill building. The earliest grinding stones he illustrated had merely hollows where the grain was placed and then laboriously pounded. Later adaptations were vertical rather than horizontal and a much later refinement was the use of horses led in circles round huge circular stones which relieved the women to do something else – hauling peats perhaps? Covered structures at least protected the horses and the men that led them from the elements but did not stop the trudging.
Simple ‘click’ mills used water power from available streams, followed by the more familiar water wheel mills with their associated kiln buildings for drying the grain. His illustrations of the inner workings of these with their huge mill stones and gears was very helpful in understanding the remains of the structures which can still be found at Fiart, Baligrundle and Balnagown.
Fragments of the top stone of the rotary querns rotary querns
As well as these familiar grain and meal mills he also described the rise and fall of the flax industry on the island with an illustration of the ruins of the lint mill at Balnagown (below) to be found just beyond the now shuttered water mill with its overshot wheel still in place, and the possible location of the associated spinning school.
