268 Scientific Proceedings, Royal Dublin Society. 



In old times, but more especially in the sixteenth and seventeenth 

 centuries, 1 there was extensive mining, smelting, and milling, of 

 iron, which lasted till the woods were exhausted, the fuel being 

 wood-charcoal. As the woods disappeared the fires were put 

 out, the last extinguished being Drumshambo, Co. Leitrim, 

 in 1765. Shortly afterwards, in 1788, the three brothers 

 O'Reilly tried to revive the industry, and smelt the iron ore 

 with the coal — the first attempt of the kind in Ireland. They 

 erected a furnace and mills at Arigna, Co. Roscommon, and sent 

 into the market some excellent pig and bar iron ; the coal being 

 procured at the Rover and Aughabehy collieries; respectively, about 

 one and three miles distant. The adventure, however, did not 

 prove successful on account of English competition ; and after 

 passing through the hands of other speculators the enterprise was 

 abandoned in 1808. 



In 1818 Griffith made a favourable report of the iron ore of 

 the district : this, coupled with his statement before a Committee 

 of the House of Commons in 1821, induced the Irish, the Hiber- 

 nian, and the Arigna Companies to take setts for the working of 

 coal and iron in the Co. Roscommon. The first and second had 

 their mining setts in the Cashel Mountain, or Slieve Curkagh, the 

 range of hills north of the Arigna River ; while the workings and 

 works of the Arigna Company were to the southward of that river 

 in the Bracklieve range ; but now more generally called the Arigna 

 Mountain, after the name of the site of the furnace and mills. 

 Practically the Hibernian Company did no work, the report of 

 their surveyor being considered unfavourable. The Irish Company 

 opened some pits, the largest being at Tullytawen, where the coal 

 for a time gave a profit ; but the most extensive works were those 

 of the Arigna Company. 



The original works of the O'Reillys at Arigna appear eventu- 

 ally to have become the property of the Latouches of Dublin, 

 because from them, in 1824, the new Company obtained a lease of 

 the works and mines. They commenced work with a large staff of 



1 Before the rising in 1641, Sir Charles Coote, hesides his Iron Works at Mount- 

 rath, Queen's County, had others in the counties of Leitrim and Koseommon. The 

 Leitrim Works may have been at Creevelea, and those of Roscommon were somewhere 

 in the valley of the Arigna, all these works were burnt in 1641. 



