These modern apartments built recently on the banks of the Royal  Canal near the 12th lock mark the site of the old Blanchardstown Flour Mills.  With easy access to transport by way of the canal barges operating a route right into Richmond Harbour on the Shannon, Blanchardstown Mills was built circa 1800.
It was the ideal location; grain could be easily transported from any part of this waterway to the mill for processing into flour by the miller.  In 1920, the mill scored a first by installing the first ‘beam engine’ in the country to drive the mill wheels.  This engine revolutionised the milling industry and indeed many more operations which up to that point depended on water wheels for power.
The elation however was short lived because this steam driven machine was to be replaced just a few years later by the electric motor which of course marked the beginning of the industrial revolution right across Europe. 

Crest Foods bought over the plant in 1972 to manufacture margarine, but following a fire some years later the site was sold to developers