Conversations with Mountmellick.

Conversations with Mountmellick

This is a full transcript of a conversation held in Mountmellick on the 11th of October 2024...

I begin by speaking to Paddy whose words will be shown in

My thoughts about what is being said will be

blue, like this. Paddy is the chairperson of the Mountmellick

shown like this... As I listen back to the interviews,

Development Association (MDA), and very kindly agreed

I attempt to draw connections between what

to chat to me.

has been said at different points.

My questions, and responses to what Paddy says will be shown in red, like this. I try to say as little as possible.

We are later joined by Fran, who’s words will be shown

I will also explain some local knowledge, which

in green. Fran used to work in the Maltings and very

might not be obvious to the reader

generously shares his memories with us.

1

Part I _ First Impressions

It was the first frosty morning of October.

[...] Unfortunately at the moment it sets a bad tone for the

Driving into the town I passed the Maltings

town… in the sense that it’s derelict, it’s overgrown with

on my left, as large and imposing as ever. The

tress and bushes and weeds … and the first impression you

building seemed different today, shrouded in a

get of a town is when you drive into the town. You live in Abbeyleix?

tangle of autumnal foliage. Almost suggestive of a change to come.

Yes-

-You come in the Abbeyleix road and you see this lovely stone wall on Willie Aird’s farm. Okay, I know Willie got a

I remember some years ago my father remarking

bit of a rubbing over it, but its a lovely wall, and it gives this

how Willie Aird (now a T.D) used his privilege

impression of Portlaoise being… a well-to-do town, and a nice town.

as a County Councilor to build this new wall by his farm in Portlaoise...

Mountmellick when you’re coming in, is a lovely town, don’t get me wrong, and there’s a great community spirit here, but the impression people get is - ‘derelict building’ on the way into it. When you get into the town itself, it’s a Georgian town but unfortunately could do with a lick of paint here and there, so it is a little bit run down from that perspective, but a great community.

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Conversations with Mountmellick

There’s not a lot of money in Mountmellick unfortunately now. Historically there was, but not at the moment, and that’s why we have such buildings here. Because there was money here.

I ask Paddy about the current plans to build

[...] But theres also an impression locally that we don’t

housing on the site. He is strongly against

want more Social Housing put on it. It’s really the last of

them. I find myself agreeing with him, but social

the ‘Manchester of Ireland’ heritage, the factories, the

housing is important, and just because there

Industrial Revolution that was here in Mountmellick. And,

might be a better use for the site is that reason

also the fact that when you look at the site, it is a relatively

enough to object to housing?

small site, so, to put residential onto it … I don’t think it would be of benefit to the people living there.

The site is irregular in shape, the building form

But also the surrounding land owners may have a problem

does not lend itself to housing, its proximity to

with more housing going there too. We have a stud farm

the neighbouring stud farm ... all valid reasons

beside it, and lovely family, but at the end of the day they

to oppose Laois County Council’s proposal.

have a business to run, and horses are funny creaturesyou can’t mess with them, or you can’t have people out walking through the fields with them because… a stallion or whatever could attack someone, you know? So we have to be mindful of that.

But I think most people in Mountmellick want something

3

Part II _The Future

Paddy is correct. The building is symbolic of

done with it, but they want something done that enhances

industry and prosperity in the Town. A landmark.

the look of the town but also gives a future to the town

To restore that industry and prosperity would be

if you know what I mean. The rising from the ashes, the Phoenix coming back…

beneficial.

The rising phoenix is a poignant image. A comeback, triumph over adversity...

There’s an awful lot of work done, it’s not that we’re

reinventing the wheel here. It’s already been done in some

Paddy begins to discuss the desire they have as

respects, but if you take the example of Letterfrack… had

a town to convert the site into an educational

a brutal reputation, and rightly so for what went on there,

facility for textile trades. What happened in

okay? But, that has now been transformed into a center of excellence for woodwork.

Letterfrack? I later learn about the deaths that occurred in an Industrial School…

We think a similar approach could be taken here in

The O’Donnell Tuomey Furniture college is a

Mountmellick to modify that building… okay there’s a

fitting precedent, my mind wanders back to

lot of work that will have to be done with it, don’t get me when I visited it last summer…

wrong, and it’s not cheap… but if we could build on the heritage of Mountmellick which is textiles… and bring a modern kind of research and design and even a small level of manufacture here, it would safeguard the town.

It would safeguard and build a new future for the town of Mountmellick

Now that’s not to say it’s the only thing it can be used for…

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Conversations with Mountmellick

It’s something that we particularly like.. No sorry, a group of us like. I suppose that the vast majority of people don’t want to see social housing there. They want to see something else there. Something progressive. And your first impressions of the town are usually your only impression of the town, you

The Maltings made a different first impression

know what I mean?

on me. There is a certain beauty attached to it’s state of ruin... but I’m aware that romanticising

And if we could have something like that… Ohh God, it

dilapidation is problematic...

would transform even the way that people think about the town themselves, you know? But anyway… Your next question, maybe I rambled on…

Now the County Council actually own it. They bought it

I’m shocked. How could a site, and a building

from NAMA for ten thousand euros.

of such importance be worth so little.

-Ten thousand? That was recently enough wasn’t it?

During the Financial crash of 2008, a local

Yeah, around 2011... 2012, 13 that time frame… And they

developer who was planning to develop the site

got a Town and Village Grant of eighty thousand euro to

into housing, lost the site to NAMA. Following

build that wall thats in front. And the Council… listen, the

significant demolitions of original roadside

Council’s hands are tied in some respects, and the Central

buildings , the site was deemed unsafe, and a wall was built...

Government wants them to provide social housing.

5

Part III _The Council

And the Council happens to own that site, so I mean they are going to come under pressure to put social housing there, we know that. But we think a different use can be made, a more sustainable use of it can be made in the sense, like, if you have R & D going on in Mountmellick you have high paying jobs in the town straight away, you have a university connection with the town, and, that’s all

Paddy explains decline as a systemic issue

important, because education is vital.

in the town. He is more concerned with addressing the root causes rather than the

If we don’t have highly educated, highly paid people in the

symptoms. Mountmellick is considered to be a

town, the town is going to always be a social welfare town.

social welfare town within Laois…

It has a knock on effect for agriculture as well, because if you take the price of barley this year… one hundred and

Paddy’s background as a farmer comes through

eighty euros a ton. Barely washing its face. Farmers are not gonna stay at that.

here. A rebirth of the textiles industry would be advantageous to farmers also.

Where if you have… If we can grow industrial hemp - now

He understands how different industries are

I’m not talking about the funny stuff - Industrial hemp,

deeply interconnected and dependent on

that gives farmers another crop to grow, it also gives raw

each other. I find myself distracted, imagining

materials for the textiles industry, or a paper substitution

a diagram I could make to show this.

industry as well. And here in the midlands, we’ve got lots

of farmers… crying out for alternatives to make a living, to

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Conversations with Mountmellick

stay farming. Because most farmers want to stay farming, its just the economics are against them a bit at the moment.

And not everyone can go into dairy cows and we don’t want everyone going into dairy cows to be honest with you because I don’t believe that would be good for the environment, and it also means you’re putting all your eggs in one basket.

We cant afford to do that as a country. We need to have a broad spread of different agricultural activity going on, because I’m old enough to remember when every farm had a few hens, a few pigs a few cattle, a bit of tillage, and when one element of that had a poor price, the others bailed it out. Family farms were able to stay going because overall they were working out… and its the same when you take it on the macro level. Agriculture can’t be dependant on one particular element. And this is a way of doing that. But anyway, I’m going off on a tangent…

I ask Paddy about the Local Area Plan, and

See technically Mountmellick is under the population size

in particular the reasons why the Maltings site

to statutory require one. But we do want one. But we want

was zoned for housing...

one that’s going to be progressive for Mountmellick, and to take into account we’re living in a changed world.

7

Part III _The Council

In fairness, most people have never engaged with Laois

I’m surprised by this, I had made the assumption

County Council when it came to drawing up the area plans.

that people never had the opportunity to

They’d hold a public meeting at the Library, and they’d have

engage, rather than choosing not too...

very good people from the planning department out there willing to sit down and talk to you but we as a community have gone ‘Sure it’ll be grand’. And then what?

People have to build up a report, so they’ve put generic stuff into their plan. And you can’t blame them, because

Perhaps there is a reason for this… Heritage,

we didn’t engage with them. We now have a town team

and ideas of value are highly intellectualised…

in place, we’re very much hoping to engage with that and drive that.

Perhaps it is a symptom of a deeply ingrained disenfranchisement resulting from our planning

And in fairness to Laois County Council. They’ve always

legislation. The intellectualisation of what gives

held open days where people can go in and sit down with

a building value has made nonprofessionals,

the planning department and give their opinions. But

the people who understand the emotional

unfortunately, we have never really engaged properly with

heritage of these buildings best, feel as if their

them, and as a result you get a kind of generic local area

contributions are less valid. Rather than laziness,

plan. And that’s our fault. We have to put our hand up and say that’s our fault.

there is a reluctance towards participation which needs to be addressed.

And funny enough, we had a public meeting , a talk actually, a few weeks ago there. There was a Nazi connection to this

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Conversations with Mountmellick

building, well, in the sense that a Jewish family had to leave Germany under Nazi rule and come to work here in the Maltings. Back in the 40’s…

Theres a journalist, he lives up the road here, I’m not sure if

Sean O’Driscoll is his name; he held an

hes home or not… he found papers when he was renovating

exhibition titled ‘Life in Mountmellick Malt

his house. From the family who used to live there. And it

Factory’ in the Library last August.

was the most interesting though, I have to say.

The beauty of this building at the moment is that nothing has been done to it. So its not like here, thats been modified

Paddy gestures with his hands, the building we

and how do you turn it back to what it was, or whatever

are in the MDA (Mountmellick Development

the case. This is now a blank canvas... a fairly rough canvas

Association) Headquarters, a converted Mill

around the edges, but still a blank canvas.

building of a similar vintage to the Maltings.

The fact that we haven’t done anything with it is actually a positive. The fact that we haven’t done enough about our heritage in the town is also a positive because we haven’t gone in the wrong direction. Do you know where I’m

We are interrupted when Paddy’s phone rings.

coming from?

He is talking to a man named Fran, and he encourages him to come in and join us…

9

Part IV _The Town

There’s a group who have come together now to try and

In 2024, Mountmellick was granted 30,000

turn things around for the town. We have the Town Team,

euro by the Department of Rural and

Fran will be in now in a minute ... He’s the chairman of it.

Community Development to draft a plan for the regeneration of the town. The town team

See now, Fran’s Family are steeped in Mountmellick. They

was assembled to oversee this work.

have some property in the town, they own land in the town that can be developed and he’s in farming.

I feel like Fran must be a celebrity in the town…

He’s retired from the prison service, he’s a well educated man and he’s able to look at things from a helicopter view and see what needs to happen for the town.

Paddy begins to speak about the wider town,

Like we want to develop the square, but there’s mixed ideas.

and the work that’s going on in one of the

Some people want it to go back to what it was like in the

Georgian townhouses… I remember getting a

1800’s, when it was just cobble stones, and other people tour of this house last February.

want to make it more modern…

I remember seeing one very old map which showed a Market House in the square, was there ever one?

A map published between 1770-1840, held by

I don’t think that ever got built… If it did it got burnt

the National Library showed a market house,

down… yeah, it may have been burnt down. Stradbally has

we could never determine if it was actually

one at the moment, now that’s a modern one, but it’s based there or not…

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Conversations with Mountmellick

on the original… and you have the library there, and it looks lovely by the way. We’re always envious of Abbeyleix to be honest with you, because we’ve everything that you guys have, only we probably haven’t packaged it properly.

You know what I mean?

Part of what the town team would like to see is kind of a softening of the architectural landscape as well, with more trees and things like that in the town.

Our biggest problem at the moment of course is the fact that so much traffic comes through the center of the town

The N80 is a divisive issue in Mountmellick,

everyday, between lorries and cars I mean you’re looking

some believe it to be detrimental to the town,

at probably fifteen thousand vehicles a day come through.

while others believe that if it was taken away it

Between five in the morning till maybe five the next

would kill the town.

morning, you know? So there’s this continuous rolling of traffic and that’s taking a toll… See Mountmellick is built on sand

Images of Mountmellick sinking come to mind…

Literally?

Yes. You don’t have to go too far down and you’re hitting sand. And… Its good and bad, but because of all the heavier

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Part IV _The Town

traffic now going its very hard to keep roads maintained.

It’s also affecting those older buildings on the main street.

Really what we need is a bypass of Mountmellick. And then

Abbeyleix was bypassed by the M8 and

you can start doing wonderful things with the architecture

it completely saved the town. As a child, I

that we have here in the town, and make it a destination

remember it used to take upwards of half an

town for people to come and visit… you take… Where’s the hour just to get through.

place in Mayo that everyone goes to?

Westport?

Westport is studied in great detail in Orla

Westport. Like they don’t have heavy traffic going through Murphy’s

2012

book

‘Town,

the town but they’ve transformed it, like the old buildings

Origins,

Morphology and Future’, in which she proposes

and the bridge and the river and all of that kind of thing.

a manifesto for the future of the town.

We could do that if we had our bypass, now the bypass is costed at sixty million…

Where exactly would that bypass go?

It would probably start out there, out the road, and come across to the Clonaslee road, and then go across to Tullamore. Now, in fairness to the council they have a draft drawing of it, but its not on the national programme, and until it gets on that its going nowhere. You wouldn’t even

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Conversations with Mountmellick

get money now, and Eamon Ryan has been blocking new

While on one hand refraining from building

roads anyway… But in another couple of weeks Eamon will

roads is a good thing, I can empathise with

no longer be there.

Paddy and his desire for a bypass...

The Greens gets a hard time down the county.

We don’t want to just be a sleeping town. Like Portlaoise is booming, Portlaoise is almost a city now. And most people want to be based in Portlaoise, because you have that critical mass of services and facilities… Now having said that, we have a sports complex that the Portlaoise Panthers

There seems to be a competitiveness between

would give their left arm for… We have an Arts Centre here

Mountmellick and Portlaoise, Mountmellick

that leaves the Dunamaise in… the dustbin.

sees themselves as the underdogs.

But they’re not utilised, and if we had a better impression then people would come and use these things, you know what I mean?

So we have a lot going for the town, It’s just getting that perception out there… but if we can get higher paying jobs coming into Mountmellick as opposed to being in Portlaoise and people commuting over and back. It would transform the town, because a lot of the businesses have closed down. Traditional businesses like.

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Part IV _The Town

We have an excellent shop on the Main Street up for sale, and they cant get anyone to buy it. You know? And they’re there for donkeys years. Second generation there, and it’s a growing concern, it was making money, the people have just gotten old and they want to retire, you know what I mean? So… It’s a sad reflection really when you think about it. But anyway, that’s where we are.

From a textiles industry point of view, at the moment the textiles industry is probably the most environmentally unfriendly for the simple reason which is we’re importing everything from China and India. And we’ve got this throw away mentality as well. Where if we were making a better quality product, a more modern product that meets modern needs - whether that’s modern swimsuits so that you can knock .000 of a second off your world record, or whatever the case may be.

Sports gear is completely different now than it was when I was a child, like I can assure you. Whether it’s in mountaineering and hiking and all that kind of stuff, even in normal clothes like… When I was a child, you got a new coat every year, and it had to do you for the year. Now

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Conversations with Mountmellick

people buy a new coat every few weeks, and we can’t sustain that. And if we can use locally sourced materials, develop new products, it’s a win-win situation for us.

And that’s why we’re anxious about this, we have this wonderful site and it’s a throwback…

Oh here’s Fran now…

Fran (still in his farming clothes) saunters in through the office door, pulls himself over a

[...] It’s probably the last piece of architectural Heritage left

chair, and sits down next to Paddy and myself.

in the town. I mean like we’ve lost the canal stores, We’ve

Paddy informs him of our conversation so far.

lost the flaxyard, most of the buildings at the back of the town where it would have been the tan yard and all of that are gone, like in at the back of what’s now the Community Centre or the Arts Centre.

All of those buildings are gone. So it’s like probably the last remaining link. Here is to a certain extent, but the fact they

Fran gestures with his hands, ‘here’ being the MDA building.

took two stories off the top of it…

Did they?

Oh yeah, this was a five story building-

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Part V _Fran’s Memories

Paddy continues Fran’s line of thought in a way

The reason for that, I’ll interject there, was that the floors…

which reveals their closeness as colleagues

there was about six or seven foot between them… It was and friends.

really for storing grain. They didn’t want height they just wanted floor space-

-Yeah, floor space.

Paddy waves his hand in the general direction

But at the time this place was derelict, I don’t know if it was as bad as it was out there-

of the Maltings, just down the road.

-Not at all, no no no. Here was very good in comparison to out there…

Yeah, it had been in use up until the 70’s I think-

-Ohh no up until the 80’s

Then they didn’t have the money to do-

-They didn’t have the money. It probably needed to be re roofed

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Conversations with Mountmellick

Which it was-

-Which it was, with galvanised, so they took the slates off it. Dropped it two stories and re roofed it. It probably

This makes sense, the MDA building appears

made it more manageable for the MDA at the time. But

slightly truncated now.

this building here is only a very small part of what was a huge mill complex here. There was another building over in the back corner there, where the backyard of the next door neighbours is now, and there was a mill wheel over there, and the whole mill complex, and the weir here in the river as well to run the mill…

So huge cut stone buildings… when you’re talking to Fran

Paddy stands up and moves over to his

I’m going to see if I can dig up a picture of that. It all got

computer. He emails me a photo of the MDA

leveled in the 1970’s was it?

building prior to its alterations.

Leveled in the 1970’s, another “great move” by Laois County Council. They had rates obviously on the buildings, and Odlum’s, they had taken over this here. This was Irish Grain, Odlum’s had taken it over, and to reduce the rates bill then, they bulldozed all the topsoil out of the field out here where the industrial units are now, dug a hole, and knocked the mill, and buried it the hole, and covered it

17

Part V _Fran’s Memories

back over.

They knocked the wall all along there, and all those buildings that were there. Like, I drew grain out of it when it was a working Maltings, like I used to draw the grain out, the wash afterwards…

So these would be looking from the back, the N80 is there, would that be familiar to you?

Yeah, all of these buildings, all along here, they’re only knocked in the last… Laois County Council knocked them…

Was that for the housing development?

Well first and foremost, they gave planning permission for… that was bought by a developer…

George-

-George Delaney, and he looked for planning permission on it, I think he got planning permission on it. And he was

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Conversations with Mountmellick

in the process of demolishing the whole building, and then the economic crash came and that stopped, and it was left in a semi derelict state. And Laois county council as far as I’m aware took it over then, and they continued with the demolition to make it safe I suppose in their terms, and that involved removing all of this building here.

This building here, is gone a long time, and the stack is at the end here now. Yeah, 1940. This was built by Donath I’d say, or the Germans that came over. They took it over…

That’s the Nazi connection I was telling you about earlier…

He wasn’t a Nazi now, but…

Some of our local politicians were worried about the Germans taking over… It doesn’t make any difference anyways, but thats where that was built on there, and the stack and all is at the end of that.

So I don’t remember this building, but I’d remember that, and all of those… They were actually Malting on the floors over there in the 1970’s. They bought in the barley from the farmers, and it was spread out on the floors and they malted

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Part V _Fran’s Memories

it themselves.

And then as time went on the stopped malting themselves and they used to buy in the barley already malted. And thats when they were making the home brew kits, and then they done… Seaweed extract, the brought seaweed into it and they made seaweed extract…

Was that some sort of Pharmaceutical-

-But sure they were ahead of their time, with the seaweed extract, Mr. Sweetman was ahead of his time, he had a market for it obviously, but they had the methodology, I suppose, with the mash tuns, that they used to make… make the mash for the extract… the basic ingredients for making beer and whatever else…

A lot of… Poitin makers, from the west of Ireland, they came up there and bought the malt off them. It saved… It cut down on one of the processes that they had to do. They didn’t have mash, and the rest of it. They could get straight to making the poitin.

Ohh they would’ve had yeah…

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Conversations with Mountmellick

And that’s when they used the canal?

The Canal down there?

Yeah

The Guinness Barges? Ohh yeah, big time. They’d come down along the canal here… Darcey’s, Paddy, They were Draymen. That’s what their business was.

Really?

John Darcey, yeah. They had three or four horses and carts, and they were collecting it from the canal and distributing it around the town, and drawing in grain and drawing coal and that sort of stuff from the canal.

Like when you’re looking out the window here…

See this? I suppose that’s another bit of built heritage left in Mountmellick. That little building over here is the remainder of the Gasworks. Thats where the Gasworks was.

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Part V _Fran’s Memories

Mountmellick was one of the first towns in Ireland to have public light and public gas lighting.

So they cooked the coal over there. Cooking coal to make gas, and that supplied the town. And there was pipework from there to all around the town. And the river bank along there is known as the ‘black path’. Because they brought the cinders out from there, after burning the coal. They were left with black cinders and they’d just wheel them in the wheelbarrows all along the river bank there.

The timeline for the Local Area Plan is way behind. There wont be a local area plan in Mountmellick this year. I don’t think theres time for it, because the timeline the Council set themselves was… Public submissions in February, then two months to allow the council officials to draw up the plan, and then, there was to be further consultations then, when they had that done. That would’ve been a May or June deadline. And it would then have to go to the County Manager, and eventually end up in front of the County Council for their September meeting to be signed off on.

But nothing has happened, only the first public

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consultation.

Yeah Paddy was telling me about that one.

And at the meeting when they came over Paddy, I think they said that technically, Mountmellick, because the population was under five thousand, they weren’t statutory obliged to have a Local Area Plan. So they kind of stepped it. So I don’t think… thats where I say the local area plan is, at the minute. So it ain’t going to happen this year anyway.

So there is time, to alter what they’re thinking on it.

Now, I’m not saying that they’re obsessed, but Laois County Council have very much publicised the fact that they are best in class in regards to providing social housing, of all our local authorities around the country.

I’d say, they were looking at this as an easy win. There was already planning permission on it for an apartment development, so why not just carry on with the apartments, with some bit of modification.

This end of the site had become fairly derelict. The buildings

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Part V _Fran’s Memories

all along here, were more or less for storage. Here was where the main Maltings went on, and the Mash Tun was here.

And the building here was where you got the grain, there was a little bit of a galvanised bit, and thats where the wash would come out there, the bags of grain…

And Jim Delaney up in Derryguile, he’d fill it into manure bags, and I’d collect the manure bags and bring them home and feed them to the cows.

I can’t remember the buildings here, believe it or not, and I should…

You should know, but you see Paddy it was only a wall, It looked like only a wall. There was no windows in the front of it. I can’t remember any windows. Or they were very small, that faced out onto the road. So like it was a long low building. For storage. They had bags in it and they used to store the boxes of boxes, you know what I mean, for packaging and that kind of stuff.

I’m glad you’ve come in now because I wouldn’t have been able to tell David.

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Conversations with Mountmellick

But the offices and that were involved in this building, the office was just in the middle of it, on the second floor. The laboratory was up there in the office. Jenny Lynch would’ve worked in the laboratory, and she was everything, the secretary, the laboratory tech, the tea maker… Everything.

Ahh it was a small operation, with Sweetman sure, I’d say even in my time, probably only 15 or 16 was the maximum to work there. And then it kind of whittled down.

Dontah kept it going… Mr Donath kept it going over the years…

That’s the German fella…

And then Sweetman…

He came in then towards the end

Ohh he was there in the 60’s

Was he there that long?

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Part V _Fran’s Memories

I’d say so yeah.

Right.

I’d say Sweetman came in at that stage, he’s related to O’Conner’s…

He was kind of ahead of his time…

Ohh he was ahead of his time, he certainly was with the seaweed extract, and they were using it then, was it either cosmetics, or some pharmaceutical…

There was also an element of Fertilisers for Farmers, coming from that seaweed as well.

For local farmers?

Yeah.

And would they have had to pay for it?

No no no, they gave you the Mash away for free, because

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Conversations with Mountmellick

they were glad to get rid of it. Glad to have someone to take them, you know?

But like the volumes were small in fairness, like it wasn’t… massive…

No it wouldn’t have been…

Like not with ten or twelve people working there. And that was reduced down to six or seven when they stopped doing their own malting, they started buying the barley already malted.

Like there was a lot of work involved in Malting Barley, like its turning it… and they had the ploughs up there at that time…

I’ve never actually been in there…

It was like a drill plough. They pulled it and they turned the barley over, and you just ran it along the floor. Because you had to turn it, to dry it at the time. Like turn it fairly often…

The Barely came in and it was brought to the top floor, and

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Part V _Fran’s Memories

they malted it up there.

So would this have been a grain elevator then? It’s probably not the clearest here…

You know that little building, that little kind of hut, it looks like a hut sitting on the top of the building there now…

No, I never remember an elevator in it, like all my time in the corn… it was a chain and winch. You winched it up. So they’d tie the chain around the sack, and someone pulled the chain until it got to the top floor. They dried it on the

Fran points at the 1940’s extension on the

top, and then they malted it, and then it came down to the

elevation. The first floor of this was double

Mash Tun, and its cooked in the Mash Tun then.

height. It makes sense that the Mash Tun would have been housed here.

And then it was pressed then to extract the-

-Malt

The Malt out of it, which is basically the juice that comes out of it, just like treacle, malt is

Ohh it would be yeah.

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Conversations with Mountmellick

Mr Sweetman was able to use the same

Yeah, and, it was a similar process with the seaweed. You

methodology the process the seaweed. This

boiled it, and then he was able to extract the… whatever…

was a clever move on his behalf: he continued

to get use out of the machinery even after the

You see a small amount of barley will make an awful lot

demand for malt extract fell.

of malt for beer production. If you think about it, theres about three grains of malted barley needed to make a pint of beer

Is that all?

Yeah, you’d get enough.

The conversation moves to the demolished

Yeah, I think existing wall, along by the road, thats in a heap

roadside buildings...

inside the railings…

Theres a big heap of stone..

Like they didn’t do anything, they just knocked it and pushed it in, because the old wall was leaning out in fairness…

Ahh yeah it did need something done to it.

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Part V _Fran’s Memories

But there was a decent lean out of it like I mean it could have been maybe four or five or maybe even six inches…

Right, precarious-

-It looked precarious, but it was probably going nowhere, because it was that way all of my time.

Do you think… does that edge along the road need to be restored?

I would restore the wall, like you say, it needs to come back…

Like I used to clean the drain over by the stop road there… twenty years ago… and someone had dumped bags of clothes out the window, and we buried it out in the field, and they still come up when were ploughing it. And like they could’ve been fifteen or twenty years in a drain, and they’re definitely twenty or twenty five years buried out the field and they still come up, the plough would catch an odd one, pull it up by the sleeve… So do clothes ever

30

Conversations with Mountmellick

disintegrate? I don’t know how long it takes…

The wool and cotton would…

The wool and cotton would, but thats what I mean, do we need to move away from synthetic clothes? Like make something thats probably more recyclable…

Well, sure listen sure…

You can’t give away wool…

Which is a crime, absolute crime, Like I think there is a move now, like I think Covid brought people to realise that we’ve become overly dependent on China, and that we need to start looking at the possibility of reintroducing some of the traditional skills in our own country… because there’s an awful lot of unrest in the world at the moment.

But even from the Heritage end of it though… Even with the Mountmellick work, there’s several people around here producing… fabulous stuff with Mountmellick work and I mean, super stuff. Like we’ve seen what she’s done out at

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Part VI _Mountmellick Work

the house, and she doesn’t market it, she probably doesn’t want to market it…

Now she’s flat out trying to do pieces for people…

But, there’s no doubt about it, getting back to where the quakers were even, and the cottage industry that was Mountmellick work, theres probably an opening there… because these pieces, they’re not five euro pieces, you know? Like fifty would be a paper mat, or a tea cosy or something. Like you could talk up to five thousand euros worth of work…

Like that one woman is twenty years doing one piece… Like that’s an heirloom like what she’s making now, not a for sale piece, but like certainly there is a possibility if there was two or three people working together they would make table cloths and stuff like that. High end stuff, because you can’t charge enough for that. And the more you charge-

-The more people want it

And if people understand where something comes from,

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Conversations with Mountmellick

there will be more value placed on it…

And also because it’s unique, like imagine if you had someone walk out on the red carpet in Hollywood wearing an all white piece of Mountmellick lace… You couldn’t write it like, like its no more your one, who is she? She was wearing the Aaron jumper… sure they can’t keep them knitted now since she wore one.

Absolutely, yeah… I’d do very little with what’s not knocked. I’d restore the front wall, and weather you’d put the building inside it or not would depend on how much space you wanted… but certainly the brick chimney needs to remain as it is now. It’s 1940’s but it’s not older… the main structure of the building, this part here, which is still there isn’t it?

That’s the modern bit down here…

That would be the modern bit…

Ohh I’m looking the wrong way am I?

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Part VI _ (Bio) Gasworks

This is the tower down here, towards the Portlaoise road, so the brick chimney is here… So to try and maintain that building as much as you could…

Yeah it’s not a million miles from what was there…

In the sense yeah… but probably too small a site for that, like an anaerobic digester of that size would probably be-

-Huge

-Well it wouldn’t be huge, but it would be fifty meters in diameter you know?

And you’d want access now for bigger machinery… The idea is good but I think the location is wrong.

Just sticking with the anaerobic digester… like, co-operative ones aren’t being considered, and I don’t know if there’s any national support being given to a co-operative anaerobic digester. Like they are all talking about the private ones, but for smaller agricultural communities there probably is scope for anaerobic digester in them…

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Conversations with Mountmellick

But sure listen, Wasn’t there a gas works over there…

There was and that’s what I’m saying

This would be like a new modern gasworks…

Effectively it is yeah… But theres one in Ballyroan there.

It’s a private one there, but he’s straight to the national grid and not particularly tied into the village of Ballyroan, but if you take even a smaller community say than Mountmellick, Mountmellick would probably have too great a need, but if you were to go to Rosenallis…

Or Clonaslee…

Or Clonaslee, Ideal. Like the pig farmers are right beside it, dairy farmers too. The town, or village of Clonaslee is relatively small. You could go heating the community centre, the school is up beside the community centre. Theres a site somewhere in the region of the community centre, in at the back of Mahr’s shop, there has to be a place in there where you could actually put an anaerobic digester, and it would

35

Part VI _ (Bio) Gasworks

serve… with very little, in my opinion, infrastructure, like you could do ground works with relative ease. Whereas if you come into town here theres…

Well I was just saying to David there that Mountmellick is built on sand which is a huge-

-Oh thats a huge problem yeah.

The fact we haven’t done anything stupid with it means we have a blank canvas now to go forward…

We’ve done so little here… Laois County Council have done so little with Mountmellick, or we’ve done so little for ourselves that we’ve done nothing…

So we’ve done no harm, we haven’t done any good, but we’ve done no harm…

Not since the 70’s anyway…

Sure I can remember the canal store, flat to the mat with chickens. Like when they finished up being the canal stores, the reared chickens on the loft floors of it…

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Conversations with Mountmellick

Do you think would there be any value to restoring say, the rail line to Mountmellick, or is that era gone?

Gone, gone-

-Totally gone, yeah

The misconception with the rail line to Mountmellick is that it went to Portlaoise

It didn’t?

Well, it did, but it went to the far side of Portlaoise, out the Mountrath side of Portlaoise. The trains from Mountmellick had to go onto the Cork line, and then reverse back into the train station at Portlaoise.

I didn’t know that…

So it wasn’t useful for passengers?

Well it was, but the fact that you couldn’t drive straight into the train station… Like you know the old railway line to

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Part VII _ The Rail line

Abbeyleix there? Where it goes down by Glanbia and that kind of stuff ? Well, the Mountmellick line came in…

It was that line was it?

No it wasn’t that line Paddy… You know the roundabout on the Ballyfin road? The railway line was to the left of that, if you’re driving into Portlaoise, the railway line would have been on your right hand side. Along there, and it went across the old Mountrath road, and then met the railway line up there, so you had to reverse back into the town then with the train.

So on the way into Mountmellick, from Portlaoise, theres a bridge, would that have been where the train?

It would have come under that, where the road is now, the train went, and it went across the bog, and you can still see the hedge… If you look closely to your right hand side when you’re driving from here to Portlaoise, and you’re on the crest of the hill, you’ll see two fairly narrow hedges, not that far apart. Thats where the rail line went, across through the bog there.

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