Cork County Council says there are ‘no immediate plans’ to renovate the former soup kitchen – which may have been the first in the country – known as the ‘Mill’ building on Ilen Street in Skibbereen.
The building, which was purchased by the Council in 2015, was built in the 1780s and became one of the first – if not the first – soup kitchens during the Great Famine.
It had been hoped that the building would form part of a bigger exhibiton or museum on the famine era in West Cork, as the Skibbereen area was devastated by the failure of the potato crop, and was the worst hit of all the regions of Ireland.
Scaffolding was recently erected on the building, which is close to Skibbereen Heritige Centre, the town’s famine museum.
Following an inquiry by The Southern Star, Cork County Council said it could confirm that a ‘preliminary business case to chart a possible future for the building has been completed and is under review.’
But it added: ‘There are no immediate plans to renovate or convert the building at this stage.’
It added that Cork County Council appointed conservation architects last year to complete a conservation management plan for the Mill building.
‘This plan identified some remedial works required to the northern face of the main building and to the western annex,’ it said. ‘These works include installation of rainwater goods to the main building and stabilisation of the top courses of masonry at the annex. Contractors Cahalane Brothers Ltd have been appointed to complete these works and their programmed completion date is early November 2024.’
In February of 2023, divisional manager Clodagh Henehan told a meeting of Cork County Council that the director of economic development and tourism was working on having a future usage and preliminary business case report carried out on Steam Mill.
‘We did have discussions with Fáilte Ireland and they were very interested in what we were intending to do with the site,’ added Ms Heneghan. ‘They see a huge tie-in with the heritage of Skibbereen and the Wild Atlantic Way, so they are very supportive of our proposals.’
She said the property had been reserved for conservation.
‘It is a very historic building, but it is also a heritage site and it needs to be redeveloped in a conservation mode.’
‘That is wonderful news for the people of Skibbereen and all of West Cork,’ said Skibbereen Cllr Joe Carroll (FF) at the time, ‘because people had feared that it would deteriorate further.’
