School: Curreeny, Dolla, Nenagh (roll number 16486)
- Location:
- Curreeny, Co. Tipperary
- Teacher: James Conlon
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0537, Page 041
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- Formerly people around here had churns for churning milk. It was about 3 feet high. It was wider at the bottom than at the top. The diameter of the bottom was about 1 ft 9 ins and at top about 1 ft 5 ins.
The sides were round and it was divided into 2 parts, top and bottom. The top was laid on top of the bottom part and bound to it with a hoop of iron.
The chief parts are the staves, hoop and bottom and lid and dash and joggler. The joggler kept down the spatters of milk.
In summer butter used to be made about 5 times every fortnight and in Winter about once a week. The men usually did the churning but in hurried times the women. The strangers used to take a “drass” if they came into the barn to avoid bringing away the butter with them. The churning takes about 2 hours and less in Summer and is done by hand by moving the dash upwards and downwards. You’d know by the little lumps of butter sticking to the dash when the churning was made. Hot water was used in Winter to rise the temperature of the cream.
The butter was lifted off the milk with the hands. It was first gone over with the Joggler to remove the water. Then it was salted and put into the firkin. The buttermilk was drunk by the people when fresh and then the remainder given to the calves.
