School: Seamar

Location:
Shammerdoo, Co. Mayo
Teacher:
Máirtín Ó Loideáin
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The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0114, Page 5

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The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0114, Page 5

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  1. XML School: Seamar
  2. XML Page 5
  3. XML “Churning”

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  1. CHurning
    All the people in this district are farmers and there is a churn in every house. The churns used here are the old-fashioned ones with the long dash. My mother has one of these churns and she makes butter in it twice every week. The various parts of the churn are, the lid, churndash, paint, claibin, butter dish, and butter spade. My mother does the churning and sometimes my father helps her. This is how she does it. The crem which is collected in basins is put into the churn. The dash is then put on then the lid and finally the claibin. The churning which is always done by hand takes about an hour and then churn is always moved upwards and downwards. When tiny specks of butter are visible on the inside of the the lid the churning is finished. In winter warm water is added to the milk while churning. The butter is take out by means of butter spades. Then it is washed with water and salt is mixed with it. Then it is made into little pints or rolls.
    If a person comes in while the milk is being churned he takes the dash and gives a few blows
    (continues on next page)
    Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.
    Topics
    1. activities
      1. economic activities
        1. agriculture (~2,659)
          1. butter and churns (~3,280)
    Language
    English
    Collector
    Mary Lynskey
    Gender
    Female
    Address
    Barnacahoge, Co. Mayo
    Informant
    Mrs Lynskey
    Relation
    Parent
    Gender
    Female
    Address
    Barnacahoge, Co. Mayo