In my almost 50 years of life butter has gone through many phases of is it good for you or is it bad. My grandma, who was raised making her family’s butter, always said, don’t listen to these news people, hard work will kill you before butter will. While visiting Ireland it did not skip notice that they had some of the most delicious cheeses and butter. So when I recently stumbled upon an article about the Ireland butter roads I was intrigued. I went digging and found out what an interesting tale it is.
My grandma always said, hard work will kill you before butter will.
Have you heard of the Cork Butter Exchange? It was located in Cork City in the Shambles area. The Shambles area was a butchering market and was up the hill from the port. This port was a major commercial center for the British Empire and this opened up a large market for food producers and merchants in Southern Ireland. However, the Cork Butter Exchange came about because of the Butter roads created to get farmers’ butter to Cork.
Salted butter was an excellent way for preserving the natural nutrients in cows milk. Which was important since the farmers had to trek to Cork over dangerous "roads" that were long and not well defined. Cork was where the commerce was but West Cork, Kerry, and Limerick had the best pastures for grazing the cows to produce the high quality butter. The first "Butter Road" was developed by John Murphy of Castleisland in County Kerry. This road connected Cork and Listowel in County Kerry as well as every town in between. What once was a 102 mile journey was shortened to 66 miles. What used to be a long and hard journey could now be done round trip in two to three days.
3,000 casks of butter were delivered to the Exchange daily via the Butter Roads
With all the "Butter Roads" up to 3,000 casks of butter were delivered daily to the Cork Butter Exchange. It would then be shipped all over the world. Though by the 1880’s co-ops opened allowing people to buy fresh butter minus all the salt that had been needed to ship abroad. The Cork Butter Exchange eventually closed in 1924. However, if you do make a trip to Cork there is a butter museum next to the old exchange. Many of the roads have been lost to Mother Nature but if you ask you may be able to find some routes to follow where maybe your ancestors trekked.
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