School: Esker
- Location:
- Esker More, Co. Offaly
- Teacher: M. Ní Ghríobhtha
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0800, Page 253
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: Esker
- XML Page 253
- 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
- Churning.
People in this locality have dash-churns, end-over-end churns and "beater" churns.
The dash-churn is about 3 feet high and 1 1/2 feet wide. It is barrel-shaped and strengthened with steel bands. The lid is round with a hole in the centre, through which the handle of the dash is put. The lid is fixed securely over the dash and the churning is done by moving the dash upwards and downwards.
Butter is made once a week in winter and twice a week in summer when cream is plentiful.
The women of the house do the churning. If a stranger comes in while the work is in progress he takes a "dreas" at the churn. People say that if he did not there would be no butter on the churn.
The churning takes about an hour in winter and 10 or 15 minutes in summer. It is done by hand - either by turning a handle, or by working the dash.
At first the churning is done rapidly. As soon as the cream "breaks" we go slowly and when the butter is in lumps we rock the churn from side to side.(continues on next page)
