by
Brian Gabriel
Gas was manufactured in Blarney Woollen Mill from “gas coal”, a usually bituminous coal used for making gas by distillation. This coal ended up as gas coke after the distillation process and would also be sold locally for about half the price of coal and it was great to heat household ranges and stoves but on account of its great heat it also burnt out the metal of the range much faster than coal. Coke, less the tar and gas, was easier to carry home as it weighed about half the weight of ordinary coal. Local people queued very early in the morning to get the coke and carried it home in barrows, buckets or in metal containers fitted to the carriers of bicycles.
The gas is a substance or mixture of substances used to produce light or heat such as natural gas. Factories too were lit by gas. Now workers could work shifts and factories could keep going throughout the twenty-four hours. Gas was useful for giving off light but it was very expensive.
The late John O’Shea recalled, “When I first went to work with the Hosiery in 1935, the lighting was gas which we got from the Gas Works behind the Shamrock Stores. I think Jack Desmond (Starch Hill) was the man in charge of the Gas Works. I remember putting the mantles on the gas lights in the Old Battery Shop.”
A gas mantle is a roughly hemispherical structure made of filaments of a refractory material. It gives off an intense white light when used in a gas flame.
Lighting in the mill was primitive and, in the winter, it was necessary to use candles. In the Autumn of 1869, a gas plant was erected and gas lighting installed. (Colman O’Mahony p 39 OBJ Is 1 Blarney Woollen Mills and the Mahony Family)
Scientists soon discovered how to make gas from coal tar and use it to light lamps.
The “Gasworks” where the gas for lighting and heating was manufactured was located at the Village end of Millstream Row. If one is to study the photograph of the Woollen Mills on page 10 of “Old Blarney in Photographs”, the furnace chimney can be seen quite clearly. The floor of the furnace house was of steel-plate and situated over the furnaces were the “retorts”, metal vacuum chambers, where the coal was roasted. The resulting gas and tar made their way through piping to reach their respective containers. The hot gas was cooled by immersion of the pipes in water from the Mill Race, rewashed and purified by passing through oxide clay before it reached the storage tank. The storage tank or “Gasometer” was situated at the rear of Millstream Row in what was known as Paddy Forde’s Yard.
Apparently, people suffering from whooping cough would be much improved after breathing the vapours from the oxide clay for a couple of hours.
The gasometer was a “floating” round tank supported on four rods (legs). When the tank was filling it dropped down the legs and when it was emptying it moved back up. A Gas Meter, which is an apparatus for recording cubic capacity of gas produced or consumed was fitted.
There was a moat all around the base of the gas tank which was filled with water.
The tar which was produced, flowed into a ground level retaining tank. This by-product, known as gas-tar or coal-tar, had many varied uses, one of which was for repairs to the roofs of the Mill houses. It was also used as a type of water sealing on the lower part of the house wall, possibly as a damp-proof course. The tar was sold for a few pence to the locals at the Mill.
The men or stokers employed at the furnaces had an extremely hot and dirty job often suffering burns from the cinders and spattering tar on their arms and hands. They worked by these hot furnaces, covered in coal dust and stripped to the waist even on cold winter days. Working boots without laces were normally used as sometimes red-hot cinders went in and the boots needed to be taken off quickly to prevent serious burning. A serious burn injury could occur if a workman had to untie his boot laces first.
The gas was piped all around the various departments in the Mill where it was used for lighting and heating and cooking. The gas jets used for lighting were covered by glass globes under which were mantles – chemically treated, incombustible hoods which, when the jets were lit, would become incandescent and give off a bright light.
Men were employed to attend to or look after the lighting and extinguishing of the lamps and maintaining the gas mantles to the highest degree. Early gaslights required these lamplighters, but eventually systems were developed which allowed the lights to operate automatically.
Before electricity became generally available, the E.S.B. ran a special line from their power station in Millfield, now Cronin’s coaches base, directly to Mahony’s in Blarney but it was only for a certain amount of lighting, it did not give them power to drive the machinery
When electricity became readily available, the Mill converted from gas and steam power, with the looms section being the first part to change over. The use of gas waned until eventually these lamps were no longer needed and fell into disuse. The furnaces were run down, the chimney shaft was demolished, the water pit was filled in, the gas tank and its supports were removed, the retorts filled in and all visible signs of ‘The Gasworks’ were removed.
The clinkers from the gas-coal, sometimes known as ‘breeze’, were often spread and rolled on the Mill Lane or at the rear of Shamrock Terrace to fill potholes. More was then taken over to the waterworks, where Ashdale House and the B.F.S. are now built. Water containing old dyes and chemicals used in the woollen mills was pumped through the clinkers to purify it before returning it to the river Martin.