Midleton

From woollen mill to whiskey

The former mill within Midleton’s old distillery complex was built in 1793 for woollen manufacture. The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage records military use during the Napoleonic wars before the Murphy family bought it in 1825 and converted it for distilling. Its successive occupants adapted a substantial industrial building to very different purposes. ^[2]

Power from the mill race

A cast-iron waterwheel erected in 1852 remained the principal power source until 1975, according to the inventory. Made by Fairbairn, it stands beside the long limestone building and its mill race. Repeated windows, storage spaces and machinery preserve the scale and organisation of a workplace whose operation depended on the controlled movement of water. ^[2]

Alex Pentek’s Kindred Spirits

In Bailick Park, Alex Pentek’s Kindred Spirits commemorates the Choctaw people’s donation to Irish famine relief in 1847. The Choctaw had themselves recently endured forced removal and severe hardship. Their own national history records the sculpture’s dedication in Midleton in 2017 as part of a continuing relationship with Ireland. ^[3]

Pentek created nine different stainless-steel eagle feathers arranged in a circle, forming the shape of a bowl. The work was commissioned by Midleton Town Council and installed in 2015, before its formal dedication two years later. It was made at the National Sculpture Factory in Cork with assistance from Crawford College students. The dedication brought a Choctaw delegation, including Chief Gary Batton and Assistant Chief Jack Austin Jr., to the town. ^[4]