O'Reilly — Ancient Water-mills^ Native and Foreign. 57 



" The wheel here represented is a horizontal one, and is the most 

 perfect specimen yet found in Ireland. Portions of another of precisely 

 similar construction are now in the Belfast Museum which were found 

 in the county Down, near Killinchey, heside an artificial island, or 

 water fastness, which is now occupied as a garden. The material of 

 the wheel now figured is of oak, and when found was quite soft and 

 spongy from long immersion in the bog ; but on being dried, it 

 recovered its hardness, and appeared perfectly sound. The water- 

 wheel consists of a nave and upright axle, both cut out of one solid 

 piece of wood, the entire length being 6 feet by 6 inches. Eound the 

 nave are inserted nineteen buckets or ladles, curved in the manner 

 shown in the drawing, and which received the impulse of the stream of 

 water. Ten of these still remain perfect. At the upper end of the 

 axle is a deep groove 12 inches long, in which moves an oaken wedge, 

 used evidently for the pxnpose of raising or lowering a small millstone 

 which was placed above, or for what would be called now ' gi'isting 

 the mill.' The whole mechanism was supported by a stone pivot or 

 gudgeon seciu'ed by a wedge at the foot of the axle where it still 

 remains. This pivot, no doubt, revolved upon another stone hollowed 

 to fit it (a socket). A stone of this kind was in fact found near the 

 water-wheel at Killinchey, and is preserved along with it in the Belfast 

 Museum, bearing evident marks of having been deeply perforated by 

 some pivot constantly revolving in it " (p. 7) : " The buckets are ingeni- 

 ously fastened into the nave by mortising, and are firmly secured by 

 an oaken pin driven in a sloping direction, from the outer circumference 

 of the nave, in such a manner as to pass thi'ough the inner ends of 

 three, and at equal distances, each bucket in the wheel had three pins 

 passing through it, thus securing it completely to the two adjoining 

 ones and to the nave. 



" No tradition now remains among the people respecting the use of 

 water-mills of this construction in the country, but there is evidence 

 (which I give further on) to prove that they were common at least in 

 Ulster three centuries ago. However, down to that period and even 

 later, the use of the quern or hand-mill was quite general throughout 

 Ireland and its use is not yet given up in some of the western islands of 

 Scotland. So early as the thirteenth century legal means were adopted 

 in Scotland to compel the people to abandon the use of the hand-mill 

 for the larger water-mills then introduced. In 1284, in the reign of 

 Alexander III., it was enacted that 'JSTo man liall presume to giiud 

 quheit, maishlock, or rye, with hand mylne, except he be compelled 

 be storm, or be lack of mills, quhilk sould grind the samer ; and in this 



[5 2] 



