By the mid-nineteenth century water power had become vital to Ulster’s linen industry. With this in mind a scheme was proposed to enlarge Lough Island Reavey and thereby control the flow of water to the River Bann. On 2nd March 1836, Thomas Handley, agent to the Downshire Estate, submitted the plans and specifications. The scheme’s purpose was to employ the waters of Lough Island Reavey to drive machinery in mills along the Bann as far as Gilford. In his report Handley commented:
Mr Fairbairn’s calculations all go to prove the superiority of water over steam for the purposes of mill owners.
Fairbairn, an engineer with expertise in the field, estimated the Lough Island Reavey was then 92 statute acres. He further reckoned that when the reservoir would be formed to the new height of 35 feet above the existing level, it would cover 253 acres. Every foot in height, he reckoned, would contain more that eleven million cubic feet of water. His estimate of expenditure in constructing the reservoir was £12,652, which included the purchase rights of 104 Irish acres at ten guineas per acre, and the making of two miles of road. On completion, he reckoned, Lough Island Reavey would play a key role in supplying 930 horsepower, twelve hours a day, for eight months of the year for an annual outlay of £1,860, saving the mill proprietors along the Bann £8,260 per annum. This scheme was completed but unfortunately it had serious repercussions for the local community. The brunt of the industrial revolution had impacted on Kilcoo.
Previously local families were dependant on cottage industrial linen work to survive. Small farmers could have reared a family on twelve acres with their income supplemented from payments for work with a spinning wheel. But the new machinery in mills rendered this occupation obsolete. Mill owners had discovered that a water-driven loom was capable of doing the work of a hundred cottage weavers. Almost overnight their cottage industry disintegrated and a much needed income evaporated.
Today the remnants of mills, once powered by water, can be observed along the Bann as far as Gilford. In the uplands above Kilcoo are remnants of abandoned homesteads which pre-date these mills and the year of the Great Famine. Those desolate images on the landscape around Burrenreagh, Foffany, Slievenalargy, Ardaghy, Durmnasoo, Moneyscalp, Drumena and Anahinchigo are evidence of our past history whilst the waters of Lough Island Reavey now supply households in mid-Down.
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