Cork museum appeals to public to help expand its spread of parchment butter wrappers

The Cork Butter Museum currently has more than 70 wrappers which covered pounds of butter produced in Ireland’s network of creameries in the middle of the last century.

The hunt is on for relics of Ireland’s butter trade — the humble butter wrapper.

The Cork Butter Museum currently has more than 70 wrappers which covered pounds of butter produced in Ireland’s network of creameries in the middle of the last century. Such wrappers are no longer a common sight for consumers, following the amalgamation of the dozens of small operators in the butter industry.

The Cork Butter Museum has been collecting the parchment wrappers in recent years, and is using its social media channels to appeal to people to donate wrappers to the museum to help preserve the history of the Irish butter industry.

Peter Foynes, director of the museum, said there were 157 creameries operating in Ireland — mainly throughout Munster and Kilkenny — in 1955.

He said the production of butter locally was a “world that is gone”.

He said the Digital Repository of Ireland is taking digital images of the wrappers to keep them in perpetuity in digital format.

But he said: “It is important to get the originals because they began to disappear really when we joined the European Union in the 1970s — that was the real consolidation. That is half a century ago now.” 

Each creamery had its own individual wrapper, typically with designs featuring cows, pastures, dairymaids and other dairy-related motifs.

Mr Foynes said one unusual wrapper has been submitted to the Butter Museum for its collection. It features a hurler and was from Barrowvale creamery in Kilkenny.

He added: “Some can be very picturesque. The one with the hurler was the first one I have ever seen with a sports person on it. 

“Some are plainer than others while some are more elaborate.” 

Mr Foynes said parchment wrappers were replaced by foil wrappers as supermarkets became more common, because parchments were not as resistant to light.

The Butter Museum is as keen to hear the stories behind where the wrappers were found as about collecting them.

Mr Foyne said: “Last Christmas, someone was cleaning out a family house and came across a whole stash of butter wrappers.” 

Anyone who has a butter wrapper which they are willing to give to the Butter Museum can contact 021-4300 600.