268 ^Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



Lisanaffrin, Lis-wheel-wirra ('Lis of Mary's Feast'), and a fine 

 fort, like a truncated mote, called dhiiie, i.e., daingean. 



Patrick Gannon's Mill. 



This mill, in the townland of Meeltrane Denis, in the parish of 

 Kiltullagh, has been worked by seven generations of Gannons. It is 

 practically the same as Flatley's. The fourteen ladles are independent 

 spokes from the vertical shaft, inserted close together, so that there 

 are but small interstices to waste water. The diameter of the wheel 

 is 5^^- feet. The ladles are made of round logs flattened above and at 

 the front for hollowing, but left natural at the back and below, and 

 about a foot wide. Iron stays, shown in Plate XIX., fig. 3, help to 

 keep them in position. It was an ordinary incident with orthodox 

 ladles for one to fly out and float down the stream. 



The tunnel under the mill is about 4 feet high, and 6 feet wide. 

 A beam runs along the centre of the tunnel floor, towards the lower 

 part of the wheel-shaft, which works on this beam by an iron pin 

 revolving on a steel plate fixed on the beam. The shaft is 9 feet long, 

 and 1^- feet in diameter. Prom this beam rises the post by which 

 the beam is raised and lowered to set the stones.^ 



The whole weight on the pivot of this wheel can hardly be 3 cwt. 

 Hence its efficiency. Though the mill stops frequently in dry 

 seasons to gather water, yet it works quickly on account of the rapid 

 revolution of the stone. The grinding speed of both these mills is 

 about 150 to 180 revolutions a minute. The wheel seems to turn at 

 lightning speed, and the water to pursue it in a leaping torrent for 

 more than half way round, when it is neatly dropped. The outer 

 ends of the ladles are slightly recurved so as to check the centrifugal 

 rush of the water and gain power. The water leaps up so much that 

 one can hardly see the shaft ; and one sees only a glimpse of the 

 ladles to the left, when they are empty. 



The water aperture is 9 inches high, by 7 inches wide. The mill 

 does not work well when the height of the water is less than a foot 

 above the aperture. The supply arrangement differs from Platley's 

 in that the water is delivered directly to the wheel, from the lowest 

 part of the cistern, by an opening at the level of the upper surfaces 

 of the ladles. 



The grinding arrangements are the same as Flatley's, except that 



^ See Diagrams I., II. 



