Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Column, Cork Independent

Article 528– 25 February 2010

In the Footsteps of St. Finbarre (Part 202)

The Familiar and Forgotten

In the year 1888, the Ballincollig Gunpowder Mills were bought by John Briscoe and soon after came under the control of Curtis’s and Harvey. The mills closed in 1903 due to the advent of the production of dynamite. The Curtis and Harvey’s mills were then absorbed into Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI). The site was bought by Cork County Council in 1974, which developed it into a public park.

It’s a difficult thing to compress the decline of the mills into one paragraph – that the mills failed to move with the times. Jobs were lost; the buildings were emptied of human life and began their ruin time. I think there are a lot of questions to ask of such a complex in terms of the human story itself. I personally am drawn to the idea of a mill on a river – making a product that had all sorts of meanings with it. One can destroy – destroy to gain power or destroy to build a civilisation.

It is known that most of the finished gunpowder product was exported to Liverpool before it was sent onto to Africa. By the end of the nineteenth century, the so called ‘Scramble for Africa’ had led Europeans to chart the Nile from its source and other rivers whilst also realising the vast resources of Africa. Through production Ballincollig was connected to that hub of activity thousands of miles away on another continent.

Without a guide the ruinous buildings and their shapes are strange and wonderful to engage with – the fallen rubble, their danger, their oddness, the shape of nature’s forms as trees burst through walls- the thorns which stick into you and you try to reveal something overgrown. Before even researching the mills I was particularly drawn to the frozen cog-wheels and sluice gates at the western end of the regional park. I often wondered what would happen if the mechanisms was released.  

However, doing research and fleshing out the exploration with knowledge brings a layer of understanding but also more questions. Over the years, scholars such as George Kelleher, Colin Rynne, Dermot Lucey, Catyrn Power, Anne Donaldson and Jenny Webb and the former gunpowder heritage centre (now closed) have all contributed to a renewed appreciation of the ruinous mill complex amongst the Cork public. Walking through and re-living the experience of the mills with a guide is something exciting as one now scrambles through the overgrowth to reveal the different parts of the gunpowder production. However, despite that I feel there is a tendency in the wider field of Cork’s heritage that here is a site that is suffering from amnesia – that the mill complex closed and that all its memories were chosen not to be publicly recorded in any way.

Apart from shining a torch into the darker places of the gunpowder stores –the ongoing historical work by the new generation of scholars such as Jenny Webb is more than just recovering the facts and figures of the various mill buildings. It seems also to be about recovering how it all worked, repairing the historical narrative, interpreting, re-interpreting, guarding and re-engaging it. However, for local historians such as Jenny it seems also to be about trying to find ways of re-building the story of the mills back into present day life. I have met local historians in the Lee Valley who use methods such as lectures, field walks and publications to ignite interest in a historical place or event that is usually familiar but generally forgotten. Such work I feel is crucial for building identity but also puts a meaning on a forgotten experience.

As one walks the regional park, the act of reflecting on the human experience of the site fleshes out the historical narratives and the processes themselves. The building blocks of memory are now gone. The sounds of the craftsmen, the coopers, the saw mills, the barge rowers in the canal, the family chatter in the houses at night – they can only be imagined now.

Today, the white washed gatehouse at the western section to the park provides an interesting contrast to the nearby skateboard park. The gatehouse was one of watchtowers built for security measures. Anyone entering the site was subject to a search. The danger of this leads to the explorer to ponder about the hidden away site (which possibly has contributed to the lack of memory of this site). If you worked within the walls, I presume you couldn’t talk about the layout and processes outside the complex. I wonder about the people who controlled the sluice gates to the canal and the people who used the canal carefully bringing the various processes together – whilst chatting about their own challenges in life.

The memories of the gunpowder mills are lying in pieces. For these pieces to be ever to be built up, guardians need to rise and find new strategies of integrating the heritage of this site into the fast globalised world we live in. However, this is not just a challenge for the Ballincollig site but for many heritage sites across the Irish landscape.

To be continued…

528a. Jenny Webb, local historian, leading a field walk of the Ballincollig Regional Park and former mills, winter 2006 (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

528b. Exploring a magazine store on a field walk with Jenny Webb, winter 2006 (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,  Cork Independent 

– 18 February 2010

In the Footsteps of St. Finbarre (Part 201)

The Industrious Landscape

A newspaper article in the Cork Constitution in 1856 gives a very important insight into the stages of gunpowder production at Ballincollig Gunpowder Mills. Once refined etc, the three ingredients of gunpowder – sulphur, saltpetre and charcoal were then removed to the mixing house.  The journalist in 1856 could not ascertain the precise proportions or parts of the final mix. He noted that the process was religiously kept and never divulged to strangers. However, the usual proportions given by chemists were 75 of saltpetre, 15 of charcoal and 10 parts of sulphur.

The mixed ingredients were then sent to the composition mills, which consisted (similar to the sulphur, saltpetre and charcoal grinding mill) of two stones vertically placed and running on a bed stone. On this stone the composition was spread and wetted. The composition mills were small buildings. Only a small quantity of composition was worked there at a time, as explosions could sometimes happen from the runners and bed stone coming is contact and from other causes.

The composition taken from the mills was sent in the form of mill-cake to another department of the manufactory, where it was subjected to a violent pressure from a powerful screw-press. The next part of the operation was the breaking up of the press-cake into fragments. This was effected by a large mallet, by which the workmen broke up the gunpowder into small pieces to render its suitable for the action of the corning mill. The gunpowder thus reduced into fragments was transferred to the corning house to be corned or grained. The corning mill consisted of a number of circular sieves, in each of which were two flat circular pieces of lignum vitae or trade wood of a tough dense nature. The sieves were made of parchment skins, having round holes punched through them. Several of these sieves were fixed in a frame. That machinery moved so that the lignum runner in each sieve struck against the powder with a quick velocity breaking the lumps of powder and forcing them through the sieves, forming grains of several sizes.

The next operation was called glazing. It consisted in putting a small degree of gloss on the powder, rendering it less liable to be affected by moisture. For this purpose, the powder was placed in a reel. The reel was kept slowly revolving for some time by which the grains of gunpowder were brought into contact with each other, producing a slight gloss. The next process was stoving or drying. The stoving house comprised of a securely closed chamber, heated by steam passing through large steam-tight tubes. The powder was spread on cases placed on shelves, rising tier above tier round the room. The heat was regulated by a thermometer placed at the door.

The gunpowder was either stored in bags (for home use), or in casks of various sizes, containing from 5 to 100 pounds. The manufacture of the casks constituted an important feature of the operations carried on in connection with the powder mills. It gave employment to about fifty coopers, besides a large number of subsidiary trades. The cutting and shaping of the staves and heads of the casks were performed by machinery. The saw mills comprised a number of vertical, straight and circular saws, worked by the new motive principle entitled the turbine. The machines were noted as long been used on the European continent and farther afield in Syria but only in the years leading up to the Constitution report began to used in Ireland.

The turbine, which was employed in 1856, was constructed by Mr. Perrott. It was of 16 horse-power and was water powered producing 100 revolutions of the shaft per minute. The rounding off the head of casks was completed by a circular saw of peculiar construction by which a skilful workman could complete as many as 250 to 300 heads in an hour.

The number of people employed in the several operations of the Ballincollig Gunpowder Mills was about 500.  When apprentices to coopers and tradesmen were wanted they were selected from the sons of the men employed on the works, as a reward for good conduct and long services. One great advantage attending the manufacture was that it furnished employment for both sexes and for every age. Indeed a man with the assistance of one or more members of his family could make upwards of three guineas per week. As a result, the men employed on the mills, the majority of whom with their families resided on the estate were deemed by the visiting journalist as amongst the most comfortable of the manufacturing population.

In addition each family connected to the mills resided in a little cottage with a small piece of ground attached rent free. The visiting journalist in 1856 described the neat and orderly appearance of the little dwellings with clean white washed walls and “trimly” kept gardens. He felt they created the feel of a traditional English village rather than the typical habitations of Irish families. However, he further highlighted that the neatness and cleanliness of the cottages was secured through the periodical inspection by an officer who was employed to check dwellings. Indeed, the walls of the buildings were whitewashed every month.

To be continued…

Caption:

527a. Sketch map of mill ruins, western section of Ballincollig Regional Park (source: Kieran McCarthy & work of Jenny Webb, Ballincollig)

 Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article, Cork Independent

In the Footsteps of St. Finbarre (Part 200)

A Productive Process

 When conflict broke out in 1854 with the Crimean War, followed by rebellions in India a succession of ensuing colonial conflicts and culminating in the Boer War of 1899 – 1902, Ballincollig Gunpowder Mills was an active and productive centre. It thrived because of war within and through the expansion of the British empire. It also flourished due to the business strategies and network of business partnerships the owners, the Tobins engaged with within the empire.

 A newspaper article in the Cork Constitution in 1856 reveals many facets of the gunpowder production and illuminate the now ruinous mill structures that remain as symbols of the industrial process. The anonymous journalist remarks that in previous years to his report, new buildings had been added to keep pace with the advance of manufacturing science and the requirements of increasing demands and sale of gunpowder.

The journalist commented on the isolated and scattered position of the various portions of the works. Gunpowder he noted cannot, like other articles of commerce, be manufactured in one large area like at cotton or paper mills. Each process of the manufacture, from the first purification of the rough ingredients to the packing and storage of the finished article is conducted in a separate building, totally detached from the rest. The reason was influenced by the nature of the substances employed, which were liable at any time to ignite and blow up the walls and roofs of the various buildings in which they are contained.

The complex of Ballincollig Gunpowder Mills was therefore spread over 400 acres. Through diverting part of the River Lee an extensive canal was cut for the convenience of moving elements from one part of the works to another. The canal was over a mile and half long and in some places twenty metres wide. It was constructed at great expense and was considerably enlarged as the mills got busier.

The journalist writes of the canal continually enlivened by the passage to and fro of numbers in large boats. On these sulphur, saltpetre, charcoal and gunpowder in various stages of completion were transferred from one place to another as the processes of manufacturing required.

The ingredients in the composition of gunpowder were saltpetre, sulphur and charcoal mixed together in certain proportions. The journalist commented that it was in this context the experience of and judgements of the manufacturer were brought into operation. He had to determine the proportions in which the ingredients were to be combined according to the peculiar quality of gunpowder which he wished to produce.

Sulphur was an element which was used widely in various manufactures in the Ireland of 1856 and an enormous quantity of it was produced in the mining districts of Ireland. However, so great was the demand for sulphur in Ireland, an extra forty or fifty tons were annually imported from Sicily. The principal seat of the mining operations in Sicily was near Catolica. Sulphur there appeared in veins of various colours mixed with clay and gypsum. The general appearance is that of a shining red colour. Large patches of the sulphur stone were piled up over cauldrons sunk in the earth; a quantity of straw was then spread over the heap and ignited. The sulphur as it melted flowed down into the cauldron and was subsequently received into wooden moulds. The number of persons employed in Catolica in the extraction of ore and the exportation of sulphur was estimated at 8,000. Half of the entire quantity produced in Sicily was exported to Great Britain. For the manufacture of gunpowder the sulphur has to undergo a variety of processes of refinement and milling at Ballincollig to render it pure.

The saltpetre used in Ballincollig was imported from the East Indies. It was sent over in bags containing about 1 ¾ cwt, but was mixed with earths and salts for safety reasons. To remove these impurities the saltpetre at Ballincollig mills was melted in a large copper vessel. The solutions were then drawn off and crystalised. The crystals as removed from the crystallising-pans were again dissolved and subjected to the heat of a furnace by which the superfluous water of crystalisation was driven off and the remaining liquid being evaporated, the saltpetre is received into flat cakes shaped moulds. Thus prepared it possessed a white colour and was free from moisture. The product was then removed to the saltpetre mill and ground by a process similar to that for the grinding of sulphur. The residue of mainly salt was sold off.

The charcoal used in the manufacture of gunpowder was produced from alder, willow and hazel. The usual mode of manufacture was called ‘charring in pits’. It consisted of the wood being cut into lengths of about three feet with straw and then piled on the ground in a circular form and covered with straw, kept on by earth or sand to keep in the fire, giving it air by vent holes as was necessary. When the charcoal was completely made, which the men judged by the smoke and other appearances, the fire was quenched and the charcoal removed.

To be continued…

Captions:

526a. Ballincollig Regional Park, summer 2006 (pictures: Kieran McCarthy)

526b. ‘Frozen’, cog wheel mechanics for leaving water into the canal, Ballincollig Regional Park