The Cork Butter Museum is a Cork museum entirely dedicated to one of the city’s oldest specialties: the making of salted butter. Located in Cork’s historic district, it showcases the city’s centuries-old expertise in a fun and entertaining exhibition. Perfect for finding out more about this ancient trade, which made the town’s fortune in the 18th century!
Salted butter – © Rawpixel.com
Did you know? Cork has long been renowned as a specialist in salted butter! The town produced several tons of them every year!
Fine and tasty, this Irish butter was sold at a local market called the “Butter market” (or “Butter exchange”). Its taste was so delicious that it became world-famous, prompting Cork to export its production internationally! During the 18th century, the town sent tons of butter by the truckload to most foreign countries!
This merchandise was even exported as far as India! It is estimated that the city sent more than half a million barrels of butter to Asia: astronomical figures for the time!
Unfortunately, the market had to close its doors in 1924, considerably slowing down butter production and exports throughout Ireland.
Nevertheless, a museum has been set up to keep alive the memory of this golden age of salted butter! As you can see, it’s the Cork Butter Museum!
It’s not just in Brittany that salted butter is popular! The Butter Museum offers visitors the chance to discover the history of Cork’s salted butter, as well as the different processes and ancestral techniques used to make it.
The exhibition begins with the origins of milk production in Ireland, and the manufacture of the first butters. You’ll learn how it’s made, the equipment needed to produce it, and the various stages involved in making this essential element of our diet. It’s all perfectly explained, fun and suitable for young and old alike! You’ll discover the steps involved in making cream, but above all butter, with the selection of the milk and coarse salt needed to assemble the final product.
Rather small, the museum presents a complete exhibition, with a French-language brochure and explanatory panels.
In addition, we present vintage machines, zooming in on their ingenious mechanisms and operating modes.
Numerous tools are also on display, including butter churns over 1,000 years old!
Then the Cork Butter Museum looks at the creation in the 1700s of the Butter Exchange, the world’s largest butter market. Thousands of foreigners travelled here from the 18th century until 1924 to trade their produce and buy Cork butter.
Finally, the museum also offers an overview of Ireland’s agricultural industrialization at the turn of the 1960s. This strong industrialization has helped to accelerate milk and butter production in Ireland, making it one of the world’s specialists in salted butter production!
To round off this visit, the museum has a small shop selling traditional Cork salted butter, as well as other gastronomic specialities made with butter, such as toffee sweets! Don’t hesitate to give in: prices are reasonable and well worth the detour…
And if you want to take some home as a souvenir, you’re likely to run into serious conservation problems. Enjoy them on the spot!
Essential information to help you plan your visit, including key landmarks, access information, and booking options.
O'Connell Square, Shandon, Cork (County Cork) - Republic of Ireland
51.902736, -8.476857
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