School: Lacken and Leny (roll number 3244)
- Location:
- Lackan, Co. Westmeath
- Teacher: S, Mac Shamhráin
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0738, Page 142
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Lacken and Leny
- XML Page 142
- XML “Churning”
- 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
- The most common churn that is used in this district is an end over end churn. There are some dash churns used also. There is no particular day of the week to churn. Any strangers that come into the house while the churning is in progress they must help at the work because it is said if they leave without doing so they bring the butter with them and bring bad luck on the house. The churning takes about a quarter of an hour.
When the cream is put into the churn it is kept twisted until the cream become into lumps. Then the butter is made. When the butter is made cold water is poured on the dash in order to get all the butter of the churn. Then it is lifted out with a saucer and made into pounds.
- There are various stories told in connection with the taking of butter. The following is one of them. Once there was a family of Murtaghs who lived in Boherquill, Streete, Co. Westmeath. Miss Rose Murtagh (deceased) told the story. She was about 13 when she told this story(continues on next page)
- Informant
- Miss Rose Murtagh
- Gender
- Female
- Age
- 18
- Address
- Ballymacallen, Co. Westmeath
