SNIPPET: The craft of grinding grain between two stones is an old as man. The use of the waterwheel to power the process goes back as far as the Greeks. If you drive through Kilkenny City from the north, you continue straight ahead for about ten miles to the village of Kells. At the end of that village turn right, and a branch to the right a mile beyond takes you to a huge old mill that has come alive again, powered in the old way, by water, per story w/photos and diagrams by Liz CODY in the March-April 1985 issue of Dublin's "Ireland of the Welcomes" magazine. The diagram is of the workings of the KILLENNY MILL built c. 1760 (original mill on the site c. 1150). Kells is a tiny village in the rich river valley farmlands of Kilkenny. A century ago KILLENNY MILL (the name of the townland where the mill stands) locally known as BOLANDS MILL, was one of 12 working mills on a 10-mile stretch of river. Eight centuries before, the monks of Kells Priory milled their wheat on the same spot and by much the same simple method as did Oliver MOSSE in the mill he brought to new life in 1984. The mill is a huge old stone building five storeys high, fed by a channel from the King's River which in turn is a tributary of the salmon-full Nore. In April 1983, over the old white dusting of flour which lay everywhere, lay a further thick layer of dust. Cobwebs hung like curtains from rafters and beams. Tools lay where they had been left aside decades before. The immense wheel was broken and decaying. This then was the scene into Oliver MOSSE and his partner Suzi TAYLOR arrived. Oliver, 24, belonged to an old-established Kilkenny milling family. Suzie, a Dubliner, had no connection. But she took to the life as someone born to it. Together they set to and over the next year swept the dust and debris of decades from floor to floor, grappled with the cobwebs, repaired and oiled the wheels and clogs, cleared the shoots, set pulleys and gears creaking into movement. Two 15-ton wooden storage bins were built, descending through three floors. As well as repairing belts and conveyors, many of the bearings needed replacing. This could have been a considerable problem were it not for the fact that in the cleaning-up operation, Oliver found among the rafters the original wooden models for all the bearings. So all he had to do was take them to the foundry and get them cast. The old millstones, on the first floor up, were dressed and set. And as one of the biggest jobs, the immense undershot water-wheel was repaired and put in order again. Oliver personally made 500 bolts to attach the new paddles made of local aspen. On March 1, 1984, Oliver MOSSE pulled the handle that raised the sluice-gate that started the waterflow to turn the wheel that drove the cog that rotated the stone that ground the flowing grain and released the first flow of stone-ground flour into the waiting bag. It was only a trickle but it was more precious to them than any of the many tons that have flowed through since. That evening with their families, in a quiet celebration, they broke bread made from the newly-ground flour. A year later it was producing about 5 tons a week, the texture varied to meet different demands and tastes by the slightest turn of a cog which shifts the half-ton stone up or down a hair's-breadth. But because there was no large market in Ireland with a taste for and appreciation of the particular qualities of stone-ground flour, KILLENNY MILL, had to compete directly with ordinary commercial mill products. Local bakeries were very supportive, though, having themselves a strong sense of tradition. Oliver and Suzi were doing it all alone, back in 1985, the heavy work and maintenance. Slender Suzi was heaving 50-pound sacks of flour around, or manhandling the crowbar that shifted the clearance of the huge grinding stones. Water-mills are few in Ireland. This one brought fascinated viewers from far and wide, and many from nearby, who remember it from their childhood days. In the early days Oliver and Suzi brought people round and showed them the workings at any time of the day, but after a while things got so busy that it became impossible. "We were getting no milling done, with the sightseers," explained Oliver. "And with children particularly, you couldn't let them around on their own. Much too dangerous." So they confined viewings to special times, much as they regretted having to do so. "There were times it wouldn't have mattered," they added. "Like some of last summer, when with the wonderful weather the river ran too low and we could only use the mill-race for a few hours every day." And the neighbouring people were heard to be saying, "It's good to see the old wheel turning again!" (Perhaps it still is???)