Water-Power as a Factor of Industrial Location in Early Medieval Ireland: The Environment of the Early Irish Water Mill

Abstract

It has long been known that certain water-powered mill sites, owing to the suitability of their water supply, have continued in use since the later medieval period. But when, exactly, did medieval millwrights begin to make empirical observations on the effi cacy of a particular source of hydro-power and, indeed, on the very site of the mill itself? In the present paper, important new archaeological evidence from early medieval Ireland (c. AD 600-1100), is used to demonstrate that conscious decisions on the location of mills employing various types of freshwater and estuarine supplies were already being made by the early decades of the 7th century AD. Furthermore, not only were increasingly more challenging locations being adapted for use by early medieval Irish millwrights, but the availability of water-power had already become an important factor in the choice of site for larger monasteries.

Frequency Analyses of Historical and Archaeological Datasets Reveal the Same Pattern of Declining Sociocultural Activity in 9th to 10th Century CE Ireland

“…Certain details of the archaeological record in Ireland bear this out. Kerr et al (2009) argue that during the 8 th and 9 th Centuries there was an economic shift towards arable production, which could have focused activity upon certain points in the landscape-mills and other infrastructure-which were often associated with, or controlled by, ecclesiastic centres (Rynne 2009). Increased intensity could, paradoxically, lead to fewer archaeological sites, because for example provisioning growing towns requires a degree of organisation and co-operation in society in general, and therefore fewer randomly dispersed smaller-scale rural settlements.…”