Farrells' Mill, Coolreagh/Coolrevagh

The Mill

Coolreagh Mill is situated some 3 1/2 miles SE of Tuam on the Grange river. It is a 3 storey building, 20 ft x 15 ft in ground dimensions. It is now without its machinery or its breastshot water-wheel and is used as a farm out-house by the present family descendants, Dan and his son Martin Farrell. The original homestead which stands nearby serves a similar purpose. ¹

Family history

Martin’s father Daniel Farrell who was married to Ellen Keane from Corofin, was born in America. His father had emigrated from Coolreagh for a better life some time before, as had his mother. When Daniel was 14, he and his father returned to Coolreagh but sadly his father died shortly afterwards from diabetes. After some time, Daniel married and he and his wife had only one son Martin.

The Farrell Milling Dynasty

The Farrells were always Millers and there were three mills in Coolreagh, one for corn, one for flannel and Martin cannot recall what the third mill was for. They were connected to all the Farrell millers in the surrounding towns of Abbeyknockmoy, Mountbellew, Kilshanvey and Tuam.

Bleaching the flannel by unusual methods

He remembers his grandmother going around on an ass and cart to the neighbouring houses to collect urine. At the time, urine was used to bleach the flannel. The cart would have a timber barrel on it and the buckets which were specially designed for this purpose were left outside the houses the previous night. When she got home, she used to steep the flannel in the urine which acted as bleach and the flannel would emerge sprkling white.

The End of an Era

The mills ceased working around the 1920s.²

Outstanding feature of the Coolrea Mill

In his book – Five generations of Milling – , John A. Claffey refers to the Coolrea mill race and states the following

“The outstanding feature of the Coolrea mill is the stone-lined millrace which averaged 12 ft in width and stretched a full 530 yards alongside the meandering Grange river to get a mere seven-foot head of water at the mill-wheel. The drainage scheme of the 1950s has left this partly-surviving millrace high and dry. What is left is a vivid reminder that here was a gigantic construction task in terms of manual labour performed according to Eddie Farrell by his great-great-grandfather Michael and his seven sons.”³

 

^1. John A. Claffey, Five Generations of Milling (Herald Printing Works, Tuam, July 1980)

^2. Out and About 2006, p.69. (Killererin Magazine Committee)

^3. John A. Claffey, Five Generations of Milling