64 Proceedings of the lioi/al Iriili Academy. 



di'Lviiig it. I hare seen of them in ye Isle of ^lan, where the Danes 

 domineered, as well as here in Ireland, and left their customs hehind 

 them."— "Montgomery IISS.," p. 321. 



(p. 14.) — "Anyone by comparing the foregoing separate descrip- 

 tions win at once perceive that the sereral mills mentioned are identical, 

 in principle and constmction, with the one described in the present 

 paper, while differing in a few details, such, as the number of buckets 

 or paddles. It will also be noted that the districts in which, they 

 are described as being commonly used form, when taken together, a 

 geographical chain, leading directly from the country of the ll^orth- 

 men through the old seats of their dominion in these countries, and 

 terminating on the eastern coast of our own province. 



" It will be seen likewise that the last of the extracts alludes 

 specially to the popular tradition, both in Ulster and in the Isle of 

 Man that these mills were Danish. The same passage, written about 

 the year 1698, shows also that in the county Down a short time 

 previously such mills were quite common. It is only remarkable that 

 more of these remains have not been discovered, but this has arisen no 

 doubt from the perishable nature of their materials." — Robeet M'Ada^i. 



To these citations may be added one from the " Encyclopsedia 

 Brit." (9th ed.), vol. ix., p. 344, article " Flour MiUs." The nature 

 of the water-mills, which were formerly common in Great Britain and 

 Ireland, and which continued in use well into the present centiuy 

 (nineteenth), may be gathered from the following description of one 

 visited by Sir Walter Scott during his voyage in the Shetland Islands, 

 &c., in 1814. ("Lockhart's Life"):— "In our return, pass the 

 upper end of the Kttle lake of Cleik-him-in, which is divided by 

 a rude causeway from another small loch, communicating wdth it, 

 however, by a sluice for the purpose of driving a mill ; but such a 

 Tnill ! The wheel is horizontal, with the cogs turned diagonally to the 

 water ; the beam stands upright, and is inserted in a stone quern of 

 the old-fashioned construction. This simple machine is enclosed in a 

 hovel about the size of a pigstye, and there is the mill I There are 

 about 500 such mills in Shetland, each incapable of grinding more 

 than a sack at a time." 



That mills, mechanically worked, were known and erected in 

 Ireland in the thirteenth century appears from the following entiy in 

 the Calendar of State Papers, Ireland 1171-1251, p. Kv. (2941), June 



