Corn and Flour Milling in Newry

by Peter Sinclair

This study attempts to capture and record the astonishing rise and slow decline of corn and flour milling in and around Newry during the second half of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century. Although Newry’s first mill was recorded as long ago as 1588, little changed until the Great Famine in the 1840s. Then, to ameliorate the suffering of the country’s starving poor, vast quantities of Indian corn (maize) were imported into Ireland from North America. From 1850 to the mid-1870s Newry’s milling capacity increased five-fold. But by the 1880s, the availability of cheap American flour brought an end to the boom and few of the district’s 35 grain mills survived into the twentieth century.

American imports weren’t the only reason for the decline. Some mills burned down with the tragic loss of employment, buildings, machinery and stock, never to be rebuilt. Some were converted to beetling or scutch mills. And others simply fell into ruin after the millowner died. Those years of success and failure left an indelible mark on Newry’s townscape and its business life. Today, just one mill has survived and continues working in the town.

CONTENTS

1 Introduction
1.1 Irish milling after Foster’s Irish Corn Laws, 1784
1.2 The Great Famine and the repeal of the English Corn Laws, 1845-1849
1.3 Rapid growth of Newry milling, 1850-1875
1.4 The slow decline, 1875-1925
2 Newry Town Mills
2.1 Newry Windmill
2.2 The Newry Flour Mills
2.3 Old Distillery Steam Mills
2.4 Canal Quay Steam Mills
2.5 Lupton’s Mill
2.6 Dublin Bridge Flour Mills
2.7 Merchants’ Quay Steam Mills
2.8 Hibernian Steam Mills
Annex I: Newry Flour Mills
Annex II: Clanrye Mills
3 Local district mills
3.1 Millvale Mills
3.2 Derramore Mill
3.3 Cairnbawn Mill
3.4 Mount Mill
3.5 Damolly Mills
3.6 Camlough Mill
4 Neighbouring country mills
4.1 Templegowran (Derryleckagh) Mills
4.2 Loughorne Mill
4.3 Savalmore Mill and the Dysart Mill
4.4 Warrenpoint Mill
4.5 Narrow Water Corn Mill
5 Other country mills
5.1 County Down
5.2 County Armagh
Appendix 1: Evidence to the Select Committee on Industroes (Ireland), 1885
Appendix 2: Liverpool and the trans-Atlantic trade
Appendix 3: Newry grain millers and merchants
Index of Name
Principal sources
References

The Mills Archive Research Publication No. 14, 2022, paperback, A4, 118pp, £10 plus £3 p&p. Please order by using the Contact form below and we’ll send you an invoice to pay online.