School: Meelick (C.)
- Location:
- Meelick, Co. Clare
- Teacher: Bean Uí Mhórdha
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0597, Page 315
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- XML School: Meelick (C.)
- XML Page 315
- XML “Butter-Making”
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- We have a churn at home. The outside is called the barrel. Inside are the dashers. There is a lid and a spigot which is used to let the gas out occasionally during the churning process. Long ago the churn barrel was worked on a frame with an axle at one end which connected a spindle, through a hole in the wall near by, with a churning gear outside. The gear was carried around by a horse during churning hours.
The width of a churn-barrel is one and a half feet top and bottom. A churn barrel could easily be used at thirty years of age. There is no butter mark on the olden make of churn barrels. In summer the butter is made three times a week and once a week in the winter. The mistress or the maid of the house makes the churn. Strangers always help, by taking a hand at the churn owing to an old superstition
It takes half an hour to make butter. Churn "beaters" are worked in a circle but smaller ones are worked up and down. When the butter gets crumbly the churn is made.(continues on next page)
- Informant
- Mrs T. Sherlock
- Gender
- Female
- Age
- 40
- Address
- Knockalisheen, Co. Clare
