Cork Butter Museum

Cork was reputedly the world’s largest market for butter for much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when butter was Ireland’s most important food export. The Cork Butter Museum was established in 1985 in the former wholesale market for butter which opened in 1849. It explains and documents the history of butter production and the butter trade in Co Cork. The ground floor devoted to traditional methods of production, and visitors can learn there about the Irish practice of preserving butter in bogs. A section on marketing includes a large collection of butter wrappers and due attention is given to the remarkable success of the Kerrygold brand in the late twentieth century. The museum holds a database which provides details of machines such as cream separators, of early creameries and of recipe books.