School: Loughill

Location:
Ballymunterhiggin, Co. Donegal
Teacher:
Eibhlis Ní Mhathghamhna
Browse
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 1026, Page 161

Archival Reference

The Schools’ Collection, Volume 1026, Page 161

Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.

See copyright details.

Download

Open data

Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

  1. XML School: Loughill
  2. XML Page 161
  3. XML “Churning”

Note: We will soon deprecate our XML Application Programming Interface and a new, comprehensive JSON API will be made available. Keep an eye on our website for further details.

On this page

  1. The churns in this district are from three to three and a half feet high, two and a half feet wide and about six inches narrower in the center than at the top and bottom. The sides are round. The only mark on the churn is on the inside. This mark shows the proper position of the lid which is put on slightly slanted. The parts of the churn are the lid, the dash, the juggler and the churn itself, while for butter making a coppin, a gimlet, and a hairer (or butter fork) strainer, prints, clappers, and a firkin are used. Butter is made about twice a week in Summer and about once a week in winter. Men do the churning. A stranger coming in is supposed to take the dash and churn, otherwise the people believe such a person takes away the butter. The churning takes from an hour to an hour and a half. The time usually depends on the weather- during hot weather it is
    (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