Editing Celbridge (section)

===Celbridge Mill===
[[File:The Mill, Celbridge - geograph.org.uk - 1008068.jpg|thumb|The Mill]]

The Manor Mills (built by [[Lady Louisa Conolly|Louisa Conolly]] in 1785–1788, extended by Laurence Atkinson 1805, restored 1985) incorporate parts of the old Celbridge Market House. It was purchased by Jeremiah and Thomas Houghton after Atkinson's bankruptcy in 1815.<ref>Liverpool Mercury etc (Liverpool, England), Friday, 4 June 1813; Issue 101</ref> When the Houghton partnership became bankrupt in 1818 Jeremiah took charge of the operation.<ref>The Morning Chronicle (London, England), Friday, 25 September 1818</ref> [[Jeremiah Houghton|Houghton]] told a [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|parliamentary committee]] that this mill was the biggest wool manufactory in Ireland.<ref>Select Committee on Petitions of Clothiers, Woollen Manufacturers, Weavers and Drapers of Ireland, on Alnage Laws. Report, Minutes of Evidence, Appendix 1817 (315) p.&nbsp;5</ref> the mill was described as employing several hundred people when King [[George IV of the United Kingdom|George IV]] visited Celbridge in August 1821<ref>''Freeman's Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser'' (Dublin, Ireland), Tuesday, 19 June 1821</ref> and the description "biggest wool manufactory in Ireland" was repeated in the 1845 Parliamentary Gazetteer. It employed 600 people at full capacity, some of them children who were eight and nine years of age. Workers from Yorkshire who came to work in the mill lived in Tea Lane (so called because of the amount of discarded tea leaves on the street) and English Row. The closure of the mills in 1879 caused the population of Celbridge to plunge from a 19th-century peak of 1,674 in 1861 (1,391 in 1871) to 988 in 1881 and a low of 811 in 1891<ref>Footnote to the census returns, 1891.</ref><ref>''Irish Times'', 25 August 1881</ref>	
		
Under the Irish Government regeneration scheme of the 1930s, the Leinster Hand Weaving Company acquired the premises for conversion into a weaving mill.<ref>Irish Times, 3 October 1934</ref> Celbridge woollen mill was operated by Youghal carpets (acquired 1966,<ref>Irish Times, 1 June 1966</ref> workforce extended from 120 jobs in October 1969.<ref>Irish Times, 18 October 1969</ref>). It was a major employer until its closure in May 1982 with the loss of 220 jobs. This ended two centuries of intermittent wool production in the village. The mill now serves as a community centre. Its warehouses which bear a wallmount dating the Mill to 1785, and a stone commemorating the site of St Mochua's well.	
		
Mills at Coneyburrow (Newbridge, near St. Wolstan's) ({{coord|53.34768|-6.51256|type:city_region:IE|format=dms|display=inline}}.) were granted to Robert Randall, Dublin paper maker, in 1729, and were later converted for use as a flourmill.<ref>Boylan, Lena, Celbridge Charter, No. 177, May 1988</ref><ref>Phillips, James W, ''Printing & Bookselling in Dublin, 1670–1800'', Dublin, 1998</ref>