The owner of a 500-year-old mill in Kilcoo has created a video to highlight what he perceives as a danger from the pipes that sit beneath the road, which is next to the industrial heritage monument.
Jim Brennan has been campaigning for over 20 years for better protections for Maginn’s Cornmill, and following a chance meeting with an expert, he was advised to up his efforts to convince the government to help him. A geological expert visited the site this year and asked Jim if he could explore the mill, which is no longer in use. During the visit, Jim told the man, who is a forensic geologist from Cambridge, of his concerns about the safety of the site.
He explained that there is heavy traffic on the road, which has a 500mm water pipe beneath it, that transfers water from Lough Island Reavey to Fofanny Water Treatment Works. Jim has been told that the increased traffic on the road puts pressure on the wall of the mill race, which is a channel built to guide water from a river towards the water wheel at the mill. The geologist told Jim that those concerns were legitimate, and he should redouble his efforts to make his political representatives aware.
So, Jim and his daughter Gail created a 26-minute video in which Jim outlines the history of the mill, before moving on to highlight why it needs to be protected. In the video, Jim sets out his reasons for filming the video: “This is a registered industrial monument. It surprises me how it can have lasted so long and that the river never took it away, but now in storms it is at high risk. Those who admire the mill so much are concerned about flooding.”
In the video, Jim goes into greater detail about the dangers. “You can feel the vibrations on the mill race. Regularly the road is used constantly, and you can feel the stones vibrating. These are the original stones. The experts have told us that no mortar at the time could have withstood the pressure of the water, so the stones had to be tightly laid, yet they are now being damaged.”
Jim then explains some of the detail that the geological expert from Cambridge provided. “The man came back and he had with him a computer simulation on his laptop. It was like looking at an x-ray. I could see the pipes and I could see the gravel, which he said would have no compaction value. He said that if the pipes went, the gravel would go. He said there would be two or three miles of water in those pipes. He pressed another button and I saw what scared the life out of me, and it should scare the life out of everyone who is downstream.
“The vibration that was being caused by the trucks—you could see it go on the screen—the mill race just disappeared. The quarry aggregate or gravel, it poured out like water. The water takes off and the mill race is right in its sights. It washes away everything.
“He asked if our elected representatives were aware of the situation. I said that some of them were told about it alright.”
Jim has sent copies of the video that he recorded to a number of people, including the Department for Infrastructure Minister Liz Kimmins, whose office responded with a message appreciating his efforts.
In the full story read about Jim’s long campaign to protect the mill and the responses that have been received from NI Water and the government about the safety concerns.
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