Nowadays when one reads every day of new inventions to save labour by means of machinery, and particularly by the use of electricity, it is difficult to be astonished at each new product. Reading recently a pamphlet published some fifty years ago and entitled ["]Old Dublin,["] I found an interesting and amusing paragraph. The author was describing a visit to the locality of Mary's Abbey and finished up his day with an inspection of the flour mills of Messrs. Boland, concerning which he says:
"The Messrs. Boland are in possession of a strange and, I believe, unique 'Lift,' by aid of which flour is conveyed from below to a store capable of holding a thousand tons, situate twenty-three feet above the ground. This consists of a couple of inclines, horses and drays. It is curious to observe elephantine horses yoked to waggons containing a ton and a quarter, literally walking up stairs! The larger incline is one hundred feet in length, with a rise of one in ten; the smaller is twenty-five feet, with a similar rise. The horses are prevented from slipping by sleeper-like blocks of timber, having the appearance of steps of stairs, which are placed parallel to each other along the track."
The author comments that "St. Mary's Abbey contains wonders of the present day as well as of the long past."
The Irish Times,
October 20th, 1928.