Ballincollig Royal Gunpowder Mills - History

History

The Royal Gunpowder Mills were first established in Ballincollig in 1794, by Corkman, Charles Henry Leslie. He chose Ballincollig as a site for the gunpowder factory because of its proximity to Cork city, and because of the flat valley and its water-power potential. Leslie built a weir to produce a head of water and a canal, one and a half miles long which was fed by the River Lee and which powered his two mills at the eastern end of the site.

The Gunpowder Mills were of great strategic importance being so near to Cork Harbour, and they attracted the attention of the British after the 1798 Rebellion. In 1805, Leslie sold the mills on a lease of 999 years to the British Board of Ordnance. To meet the demands of the British Army, during the Napoleonic Wars, the mill site was expanded tenfold and twelve new mills were added to the complex as well as new processing buildings and homes for the workers and senior officials. To improve security, a cavalry barracks was constructed in 1810 and military escorts would accompany the wagons of powder to Cork harbour. The whole area comprised 435 acres (1.76 km2) and was enclosed by a high limestone wall, some of which is still visible today.

After the Napoleonic Wars, the demand for gunpowder fell dramatically and the mills were closed in 1815. The site was left to the elements for nearly twenty years until Thomas Tobin and his partner Charles Horsefall from Liverpool bought the mills in 1834 and transformed them into one of the most up to date industries in the country.

Ballincollig continued to grow into a thriving village throughout the middle of the nineteenth century, even while famine raged in other parts of the island. At this time about 500 men and boys were employed and a wide range of skills were in use in the mills: coopering, mill-wrighting, carpentry as well as other specialist gunpowder making skills. The population of Ballincollig, in 1886, from the Postal Directory of Munster, was 1,130 (including the military).

The powder at this time was largely blasting powder to meet the demands of the construction of new railways, mining and quarrying.

In the latter part of the century, the mills went into decline again as the demand for black gunpowder decreased as new types of explosives such as nitroglycerine were developed.

The mills finally closed in 1903 after the end of the Boer War with a devastating effect on the local community. Eventually, the site came to be owned by ICI, formerly Nobel Industries.