The Gallaghers of Ballinrobe

Items that helped ease the workload on the Irish farm included a hand-cranked butter churn, left, shown open at
center. Another useful tool, at right, was a knapsack for spraying blight protection on the potato crop.
Now used as a lawn decoration, the crane and pot were
once a mainstay of the Irish kitchen.
the country. Farmers would keep a sow (the female) to have
the bonhams, or piglets. When the bonhams were old
enough and in good condition they would be taken to
market in Ballinrobe and sold. One or two were kept on the
farm; when the time was right, a butcher would call and the
pig would be slaughtered, providing plenty of bacon for the
family. The butcher would cut up the carcass. It was put
into a large wooden barrel with layers of salt between each
piece to create a brine to preserve the bacon. More bacon
would hang from the kitchen ceiling, getting a distinctive
flavor from the smoke of the open fire. On a day when
bacon was on the menu, it was there waiting to be used. In
the meantime, the sow may have had more bonhams and
the cycle started again.
Eggs were good for feeding the family and
bartering with the shopkeeper or neighbors. Farming was a
communal affair, and neighbors needed to pull together.
What one neighbor had in surplus could be traded with
another. Men, women and children all contributed.
The cow was only the beginning of the dairy
process. Once the cow was milked, the milk was poured
into a container through a wire strainer and piece of muslin
cloth to prevent any dirt from getting into the mix. The next
day the cream would be removed from the top and placed
into a cream jug until there was enough to put in the churn
to make the butter. The churn's handle would be cranked
and cranked until, eventually, the butter started to form.
Inside the churn was a gadget called a dash; it's the friction
of the milk or cream against the dash that makes the butter.
After the butter was removed from the churn, salt was
added and the butter rolled, as if kneading bread, to
remove the excess milk. The liquid left in the churn was
buttermilk.
The buttermilk was used to make the caiscin, the
brown bread, that was baked every day. The shape of a
cross typically was made on top of the cake before it was
baked. Some say the step was included so God would bless
the cake; “heathens” might say it was simply to allow the
cake to rise equally.
WETTING THE SHAMROCK
Until more recent times, there was, in general, a
significant difference between how St. Patrick’s Day was
celebrated in, say, America, and in Ireland itself.
Boisterous, sometimes well-lubricated parades
and other celebrations were common in Philadelphia,
Wilmington and other outposts of the Irish diaspora.
Conventional wisdom held that Ireland marked the day
with a more reverent observance of the island’s patron
saint.
But reality is not so black (or green) and white.
A debate from the quarterly meeting of the
Ballinrobe District Council in March 1906 shows there was
not complete agreement on how the saint’s feast day was or
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