3 4 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



divide their cares Tjetween farming and the fisheries." The working male 

 population then was about equal to the entire population at present. From 

 Westport, in 1835, the export of corn, meaL and flour amounted to 

 14,621i tons. " Considerable shipments of corn were formerly made at 

 Uewport ; but they do not now exceed 1,000 tons a year, most of the trade 

 having been removed to Westport." Corn, like linen, has long ceased to be 

 a staple article of commerce in the district of Clew Bay. The authority 

 quoted makes no mention of the export of live stock from Clare Island at the 

 period 1841-1845. In Mr. Kilgallon's account of the recent export trade, 

 quoted in Professor Wilson's paper, p. 45, there is no grain or other tillage 

 produce, only live stock and wooL Since 1845, the industrial civilization of 

 the island, and indeed of the mainland for the most part, has been lapsing 

 from the agricultural and manufacturing to the pastoral stage. 



Among other kinds of grain, we need not doubt that wheat was grown in 

 Clare Island, as elsewhere in Ireland, from prehistoric times. The Irish names 

 for wheat, eruithncackt xaAtuireann, cannot be dated as borrowed words. The 

 word cruithneacht seems to have originally meant " Pietish produce," from 

 Cruithni, the Irish name of the Rets, who formed a large element in the 

 prehistoric and early historic population. There was formerly a water-mill on 

 the island. A small group of houses, where the northern road crosses the 

 stream in the townland of Maum, is still called an Muilcann, "the mill." 

 The stream is Abhainn- an MhuUinn, " the river of the mill," and it flows 

 from Loch an Mhuilinn, " Loughavullin," "the lake of the mill" Muilcann 

 appears to be a loanword from Latin, but is of great antiquity in Irish. A 

 legend ascribes the invention of watermills to Cormac mac Airt, a pagan king 

 of Ireland. In a.d. 651, two sons of Blathmac, king of Ireland, went 

 marauding in Leinster. They were pursued, and forced to hide themselves 

 in the wheel of a eorn-milL The mill was set in motion, and the two princes 

 were crushed to death. Yerses made on this event are thus translated by 

 Kuno Merer : — 



null 



t hast ground corn of wheat, 

 This was not a grinding of oats (?) 

 Thou groundest on CerbaU's grandsons. 



The grain the mill grindeth 



Is not oats, but it is red wheat : 



Of the branches of the great tree was 



The feed of Mael-odran's mill. 1 



1 Hiberaica Minora, ed. by Kuno Meyer, p. 73. See also the A»™*1« of Ulster, a.d. 650 (= 651). 

 .f: stanza is terbii*i = or, in the Annals, teriaini. It seems 



