MILK FOR THE CREAMERY

The exhibits also include butter making equipment and reminders of the time when milk was delivered daily to households by the milkman and his horse drawn cart.

Cobh Milk Producers' Co-operative Society was founded in 1956 by the dairy farmers on Great Island (Cobh) and opened in 1957. It had 27 registered milk producers.

Before this, farms sold their milk directly to households in the town. The milk would be measured into a waiting jug, sometimes the lucky housewife would receive a 'tilly' - a tiny bit more (from the Irish tuile) for good measure.

The Co-operative, known as the 'creamery', stood on the site of the old steam laundry in Park Road, now the Park Road Centre, a Community Housing Project. It functioned as a pasteurising and bottling plant for "liquid" (drinking) milk, the excess being sent away for manufacturing into milk powder, cheese and butter.

Milk was collected from the local farms in churns by the creamery lorry and later by bulk tanker.

During the 1970s and early 80s the Society supplied milk to Verolme Cork Dockyard, the Irish Naval Service, the new Irish Fertilizer plant at Marino Point and later to the Fort Mitchel Prison on Spike Island.

Cobh Milk Producers closed in 1989 when the Society was amalgamated with Mitchelstown Co-operative Society, now Dairygold Co-operative.