School: Loughill, Longford
- Location:
- Laughil, Co. Longford
- Teacher: P. Ó Corcora
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0768, Page 338
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- XML School: Loughill, Longford
- XML Page 338
- XML “Churning”
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- I have a churn at home. It is 2 ft 6 in high 1 ft 8 in wide at the top and 1 ft 10 in wide at the bottom. The sides are straight. It is eleven years old. These are the parts of the churn, the dash, the lid, the clabby, and the butter milk cup. The clabby is to keep the milk from coming out. The butter milk cup is to lift the milk out off the churn. there are no marks on the top of bottom of the churn.
Butter is made twice a week in the Winter and three times a week in the Summer. My mother and I do the churning always. If any one comes in when churning is going on they take a brash as it is called and it is said you would have more butter. With some churns it is easy to churn and with others it is hard. When a cow is after calving her milk is easy to churn and a cow that is within a few months of calving her milk is very hard to churn. It would take about three quarters of an hour to churn any way. The churning is done by hand. The churning is done straight but some people churn from side to side and they say it far easier on the body. When the dash is clean that is how the person or persons know when the milk is churned. When you begin to churn you put in boiling water to get up the temperature and when you are done churning you put in cold water to wash it down. The butter is taken out with a coarse strainer and put in a pail. Cold spring water is poured in and the woman washes the butter in it. The water is drained off and salt is put on the butter. It is well mixed and it is made in to rolls with butter spades."It is said that if you but a shovel in the fire when churning you never will be without butter". "If a person comes in when you are churning and they do not take a "brash" it is said they bring your butter away
The butter milk is given to calves, pigs, and bread is made(continues on next page)
- Collector
- William Halligan
- Gender
- Male
