THE TALLEST WINDMILL IN IRELAND

Caroline McCall, MGSI

The great windmill at Seatown, Dundalk, stands seven stories high. At one time reputed to be the tallest in Ireland, it overlooks the east end of the town. With its roof and sails long gone it has the appearance of an early Christian round tower. An increase in the production of oats and wheat during the Napoleonic Wars, to cater for the busy export trade, was probably the impetus that led to its construction. It has not operated as a working mill since the mid 19th Century. Several times in the past, great plans have been made for its restoration but, on each occasion, these have come to nothing. Each year it becomes a little more dilapidated and the ivy encroaches steadily upwards on the dark grey stone.

The Windmill is located in Seatown, Dundalk, Co. Louth. The Patron day of the parish is 29th June, the festival of St. Peter. The Ordnance Survey Letters relating to Seatown dated 15th February 1836, state 'In Dundalk town there was formerly a well called Tobar Peadair; it is now closed and a windmill erected on its site.’ In his journal of 29th June 1815 a resident of Seatown, Henry McClintock wrote 'I passed the evening with Captn. Johnson - there was a great pattern in Seatown here.'

Prior to the building of the Windmill, the site had been occupied by a brewery. The brewer is listed as a Mr. Henry Byrne. In a deed dated 2nd February 1768

'Mr. Gerald Byrne the younger devised unto John Foster those tenements … including a dwelling house Brewery Malt House and several other houses … for the term of three lives … under yearly rent … of two pounds fifteen shillings sterling besides other duties payable half yearly.'

The brewery is referred to as 'Mr. Ford's Brewery' in the Longfield Collection of maps in the National Library. Adjacent to the brewery site on this map are 'Mr. Pat Martin's mill grounds'. Old legal deeds held by the Louth Local Authorities Archives, Dundalk, refer to Mr. Patrick Martin of Dundalk, as 'a brewer’. In his book 'Gossiping Guide to Dundalk', H.G. Tempest refers to a Mr. Martin, who was an extensive householder in the town, as the builder of the Windmill. He 'built the windmill and used it for fine flour and oatmeal manufacture, and for the grinding of Indian corn' (maize). Unfortunately, he did not cite his source for this information. However, his father, Mr. William Tempest, was a noted historian in Dundalk. He was also one of the receivers appointed by the court to collect the rent for the Windmill, when it was under the control of the Court of Chancery in the latter half of the 19th century. Although no precise date has been established for the construction of the windmill, the evidence available seems to point to the early 1790's.

During the Napoleonic Wars, the windmill was operated by the Kieran and Callan families. The Kieran's are listed in the Hearth Money Rolls for the old civil parish of Castletown Belew in the Barony of Dundalk in 1664. This parish included the Pre-Reformation parishes of Philipstown, Kilcurley and Dunbin among others. The Rolls indicate that the Kierans paid tax on six hearths. They also feature in an 18th Century corn census of County Louth held at the National Archives. This survey was carried out between the years 1739 and 1741 and gives an account of the corn and other crops, in the possession of the farmers of County Louth.

In his 1920s Townland Survey of County Louth, the Rev. P. Corcoran C.C. refers to the ruins of the old parish church and graveyard of Dunbin.

'Up to 80 years ago children used to be buried here, but it was also used for adults at an earlier time.' He also states 'there is a vault to the rear of Mr. John Brady's house which is said to belong to the Kieran family'.

He makes reference in his article to the flogging of a member of the Kieran family at Dundalk for a breach of martial law in 1798.

By the late 1700s, the Kieran family were well established as Chandlers in Clanbrassil Street, Dundalk. Owen Kieran married Margaret Dowdall and they had three sons, James, William and Laurence, and four daughters, Mary, Margaret, Anne and Ellen. An inscription on the back of an old photograph of the Windmill referred to the 1798 Rebellion, and the flogging of their son James, at the windmill yard. This story was detailed in several histories of Dundalk written in the nineteenth Century, including Anthony Mannion's history of maritime ports and D'Alton and O'Flanagan's 'The Sham Squire'. They cite as their source, a Mr. Byrne of Lisnawilly who had witnessed this event as a child.

In March 1797, a proclamation was made, ordering the surrender of all arms to the authorities. In 1798 Dundalk was placed under martial law, which was upheld by a system of district yeomanry, who acquired a considerable notoriety for their ill treatment of local Catholic community. The yeomen of Dundalk were under the control of Lord Roden. Mannion writes 'the name of Catholic was synonymous with that of rebel and the pitch cap and triangle were exerted with more than ordinary severity there’. Anthony Marmion states that James Kieran had

'returned from Newry in the month of May where he had been to purchase English bills to remit to his father's London correspondent ..... he was retiring to rest when his room was entered by an armed soldiery who dragged him to the guardhouse. The Carlow Militia commanded by Col. Latouche was passing through the town and he presided at a court-martial on this young man. The following morning, and for the offence of having a candle to light him to bed he was sentenced to receive three hundred lashes; one hundred and fifty of which were inflicted forthwith.’

When he had sufficiently healed from this punishment, the remaining 150 lashes were given. Although he survived his brutal punishment it must have had a dreadful impact on his parents. By 1802, both of them had died and James was head of the family. Although no record of the court martial has survived among the Rebellion papers of the National Archives, it is referred to in his obituary, which appeared in the Newry Examiner of 22nd June 1836.

The Napoleonic Wars were to mark a rapid change in the fortunes of the Kierans. During the next decade, James and his brother William Kieran became the 'principals engaged in foreign trade' in Dundalk. In 1808, William started the victualling trade and for the next three years the greater part of the contracts for supplying the Royal Navy of Great Britain with beef and pork was made up in Dundalk.

In 1811 the brothers were part of a committee, which proposed the building of the Buttercrane, some of the money for which was obtained by public subscription. A deed dated 25th May 1811, between Earl Roden, James Kieran, William Kieran and others refers to

'That plot of ground with the buildings lately erected thereon - for the purposes of establishing a Buttermarket Crane and Stores ... provided the directors compleat and finish the buildings now in part erected and establish the same into a public market for the purchase and sale of butter, or into Corn or general accommodation'

Also in that year William Kieran was one of the committee 'named and appointed ... at and by a numerous meeting of the principal inhabitants of the town of Dundalk' held at the Guild Hall on Saturday 23rd March 1811 'for the purpose of establishing a public bakery'.

James Kieran was a most enterprising merchant and embarked very extensively in foreign trade. Through Dundalk came imports of hemp, flax and tallow from St. Petersburg and Riga, and iron and wood from Stockholm and Guttenberg. Owing to his efforts the flags of almost every European nation floated over the Dundalk waters.

The brothers had other milling interests apart from the Seatown Windmill. In 1815 James Kieran and his brother William built the Philipstown Mills, in the Townland of Philipstown, approximately three miles from Dundalk at a cost of £30,000 - £40,000. These extensive watermills took advantage of the Castletown River adjacent to them. By 1818 the mills of Messrs. Callan and Kieran were dealing with 40,000 barrels of wheat a year.

The mill house at Philipstown was still occupied in the late 1930s and an inscription beside the bridge had read

‘This Bridge was erected by James Kieran of Philipstown at his own expense.
Anno Domini 1815.’

Sadly, cattle now inhabit the ruins of these once magnificent mills. The stone bridge leading to them is in a very poor condition and the inscription is long gone.

On the 18th April 1820 an attempt was made to rob the Buttercrane stores of bonded foreign wheat. In his journal of that date Henry McClintock (the Collector at the Custom House in Dundalk) wrote

'I attended all day at the Custom House - Mr. Stratton sent off a long statement to the Board (of Customs) of the particulars of the attempt made to rob the corn stores, with the depositions of the soldiers by which it clearly appears that James Kieran employed the men for that villainous purpose.’

In 1822 an investigation into the matter was held at the Court House Dundalk,

'relative to a large quantity of foreign wheat that was feloniously taken away from one of the Butter Crane lofts where it had been lodged under the King's lock and keys since March 1819 and was the properly of Mr. James Kieran ... several persons were examined on oath before the magistrates but nothing could be elicited from them upon the subject of the robbery.'

Whether James Kieran had any involvement in the robbery was never proven. During the Napoleonic wars, the fanners of Louth had enjoyed prosperity. However, variations in the weather led to a bad harvest in 1816, and in 1817 there was a scarcity of food in the town. Cereal prices fell considerably in the years following the war and the corn in the Buttercrane stores was rapidly declining in value. Prices dropped from in excess of £2 7s per barrel in 1813 to a mere 17s 2d per barrel a decade later.

Following his retirement from business, James Kieran went to live at Philipstown. He spent much of his time at his mills and continued to maintain several properties in Clanbrassil Street, Dundalk. Having made his fortune in business he turned his attention to politics.

By 1820 the Catholic population of Dundalk had increased in number and wealth, and they sought land in Dundalk for the purpose of building a larger church. Lord Roden agreed to the proposal. He offered them land, situated opposite the distillery, on condition that they handed their old church over to him. This, they naturally refused to do. The new church was eventually built but the episode had encouraged resentment and anger in Dundalk. Lord Roden had also imposed tolls on produce coming into the town, which provoked great annoyance among the merchants, and following litigation the tolls were abolished.

Representation of the borough was at the disposal of Lord Roden and the seat in the House of Commons could be had for a price. At one time it was sold to a brewer from London for £2,500. In 1820, Robert Jocelyn, son of Lord Roden was elevated to the peerage. This caused a parliamentary vacancy in the borough, which had not been contested for many years. T.B. Balfour of Townley Hall was proposed as a candidate. However the Hon. John Jocelyn, an uncle of Lord Roden's, announced his intention to also stand. Balfour withdrew his nomination and Jocelyn became MP. And so the status quo remained undisturbed.

But the tide was turning against the establishment in Dundalk. The Kieran brothers contributed to the Catholic Association and attempted to remove parliamentary control of the 'rotten borough' from the hands of Lord Roden. Both William and James Kieran were involved in an organisation called 'Friends of Independence in the Town of Dundalk' and together with other Catholic merchants in the town 'succeeded in their object during the election’. Alexander Dawson of Ardee, a barrister, was their chosen candidate in the 1826 election for County Louth.

The contest was fiercely fought. In his journal, Henry McClintock wrote,

'The mob were very riotous in Dawson's favour and the entrance to the Court House had to be guarded by police ... I do not believe that any gentleman in this county (except the Roman Catholics) support Dawson … the R. Catholic priests are posted on all the roads round this town & harangue the freeholders coming in & tell them if they vote for Dawson their souls will be saved but if they oppose him they will be damned'.

Tenants, brought by cart by their landlords to vote, had to be guarded from 'the fury of the Popish mob and priests. Alexander Dawson and John Leslie Foster were elected and returned to Westminster. On 4th July 1826 'the chairing of Mr. Dawson took place in this town - there were a great number of the common people at it but not one Protestant Gentleman or indeed any gentlemen except Sir Edward Bellew's family and Mr. Edward Byrne. McClintock's view may have been coloured by the fact that the defeated candidate was his nephew Matt Fortescue.

Following the election many of the freeholders who had voted for Dawson were exposed to the vengeance of their landlords. A relief committee was formed to support those who had been evicted from their homes.

James Kieran died on the 18th June 1836 at Philipstown. He had never married. The summary of his will, dated 15th June 1836, in the Irish Will Register for 1836 gives some indication of his lifestyle - 'a house in Clanbrassil Street together with furniture, plate, wine, carriage, jaunting car, gig etc.' In addition, he was the owner of a substantial amount of property in and around Dundalk. His estate of £13,510 8s 8½d was divided between his four spinster sisters Anne, Margaret, Mary and Ellen, his brother William, and William's three children Sophia, Ellen Frances and Anna Matilda. James brother Laurence had predeceased him.

Obituary of James Kieran
The Newry Examiner 22 June 1836

At Philipstown, near Dundalk, on Saturday, the 18th June, 1836, James Kieran, Esq., in the 53rd year of his age. In patriotism, friendship, and fidelity, few were so ardent, - none more sincere, - with a heart which never yielded to the power of a persecuting tyrant, or failed him in the various disappointments of fleeting commerce, yet never was unmoved by the call of charity, and always alive to relieve the wants of the poor, who frequently through life appealed to his generosity. Early in life he felt the wrongs of his native land and his generous soul aspired for her freedom. In '98, torn from his beloved parents, before a brutal soldiery he was sentenced by Colonel Latouche, to undergo the cruel punishment of flogging, for the solitary crime of having a lighted candle in his room, after a prescribed hour; and the dust of his native town was consecrated by his young blood. Still his unbending spirit ever soared above the power of his persecutors until the glorious struggle in 1826, when, joined by the patriots of his country, he had ample revenge of his oppressors, and greatly contributed to hurl the hereditary foes of the liberties of Old Ireland. He is gone; and, when the rising youth of his county read the inscription on his silent tomb, may they imbibe the spirit of charity which marked his course through life, - inhale the bright spirit of liberty which guided him here, - and enjoy, hereafter, the reward of a virtuous career, which, it is hoped, he now possesses in a better world. As a merchant, he was highly esteemed and respected in foreign ports, for his probity and integrity and was first instrumental in raising the commercial character of Dundalk from insignificance to importance, being the only importer of Russian, Spanish, or States produce, that ever was known in that port. After the French war, he retired from commercial pursuits and erected the extensive mills at Philipstown, where he departed this life. (Communicated)

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