Ballincollig continued to grow into the middle of the nineteenth century, even while famine raged in other parts of the island. At this time about 500 men and boys were employed and a range of skills were in use in the mills: coopering, mill-wrighting, carpentry as well as other specialist gunpowder making skills. The population of Ballincollig, in 1886, from the Postal Directory of Munster, was 1,130 (including the military).