The Newmills Corn and Flax Mills outside Letterkenny will reopen to visitors this summer.
Opening on 1st June, the heritage site offers a first-hand look at the technology that powered the Industrial Revolution.
Councillor Jimmy Kavanagh received confirmation of the reopening this week from Patrick O’Donovan, Minister for the Office of Public Works. Following recent works at the facility, Cllr Kavanagh made the call in February for the centre to be fully-functional and staffed for the 2023 tourist season.
Newmills will stay open for four months this summer until 30th September. The site will be open to the public from Tuesday to Sunday each week (closed on Mondays).
Minister O’Donovan said there will be a guide service in place for the duration of the season and the team looks forward to welcoming visitors to the Mill throughout the summer.
In recent years Cllr Kavanagh has campaigned for the site, which welcomes approx 3,000 visitors per year, to be supported to reach even greater potential.
Visitors to Newmills can see one of the largest working waterwheels in the country.
The oldest surviving building at Newmills is 400 years old and there have been mills at Newmills since the early nineteenth century. In Victorian times a flax mill lay at the core of the complex, providing crucial supplies to the linen industry, the backbone of Ulster’s economy at the time. A corn mill ground barley, oats and imported maize.
Newmills steadily expanded to include a public house, a scutcher’s cottage and a forge. By the early 1900s Newmills was also exporting food – the earliest supplies of butter, bacon and eggs for Sir Thomas Lipton’s nascent grocery empire in Glasgow came from there.
For more information and a visiting guide, see: https://heritageireland.ie/places-to-visit/newmills-corn-and-flax-mills/
