Shackleton Mill
In 1998 flour production ended at the Anna Liffey Mill. The Anna Liffey Mill, also known as Shackleton Mill, lies on the North Bank
of the River Lifffey at the base of Tinkers Hill in Lucan, Co. Dublin. In 2002 Fingal County Council bought the mill with the aim of
making it a museum.
These photographs made during October 2009 document this building's interior. The building seems caught in limbo between
working mill and the intended museum, neither one thing nor the other. Instead the building is used as a dry storage space by
Fingal County Council. It is this in-between state that is the subject of these photographs. The quiet interior of this building is
an accident at play, an unintended consequence of aspiration curtailed by financial austerity.
These images show how a building reflects and records the activities of the people who inhabited it. In this case 182 years of
milling with its MIAG rollers, plan sifters, quality control ovens and weighing scales, silos, vacuum tubing; and seven years from
2002 as a storage space for school desks, wax cauldrons from the Rathborne candle factory, auction lots of books in Fyffes
banana boxes, and a display board of the Blanchardstown Brass Band.
The activity of the working mill is suspended, the racket and din silenced. The space feels robust with potential.
Box size: 509mm x 397 x 35mm
Print: 397mm x 264mm
Pigment print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag
Edition of 10 + 1ap
Photographed October 2009
Upcoming exhibition:
Irish Architectural Archive
45 Merrion Square
Dublin 2
September 7 - December 22 2011
Avery Scales
Blue Hopper
Gardner and Sons
IAA exhibition
Irish Flour Millers' Association
Letterhead
MIAG Roller Milling Room
Plan Sifters On Top Floor
Purifiers On Third Floor
Quality Control
Red Fire Door
Shackletons Pastas Semolina
Sprinkler Pump Room
Strictly No Smoking
The Blanchardstown Brass Band
Vacuum Tubing
Wax Cauldrons
Wolves II Shackleton 0
Wood Chutes
Wood Silo
Workshop