IKEA Butter Churn for Gneeveguilla

Gareth Kennedy INSIDE FRONT COVER (UN- PRINTED MUSKAT BROWN IKEA BUTTER CHURN 290 G/M2 FOR GNEEVEGUILLA

In July 2011 two wooden tables were purchased in IKEA, Dublin. These were then brought to the village of Gneeveguilla (pop. 500), , where they were re-crafted into a butter churn and a firkin. Celebrating the wealth of local lore sur- rounding butter and it’s social, cultural and eco- nomic history, every inhabitant of Gneeveguilla (and visitors) was invited to come and spin the churn to help produce a massive pat of butter which was then packed into the firkin and paraded down the village. It was then brought to the local bog where it was ceremonially buried to become Bog Butter. This invented tradition was filmed. The film presents a folk fiction which serves as a celebra- tion of the continuity of people and place in spite of hard economic times. The film was premiered in Gneeveguilla in March 2012.

1 Crafting Folk work includes early unedited actualities, of honest rural endeavour ̶ scenes of and function, Kennedy creates a dynamic newsreels, amateur record films and hay‑making, seaweed gathering, school‑ and surprising new kind of ritual record. professional documentaries. Fiction films children (often bare‑footed) at work and Kennedyʼs Butter Churn film is made Fiction too include scenes of ʻrealʼ rural practices at play, church‑going and cattle driving. in IKEA in Ballymun, Dublin, in Shandon, Sunniva O’Flynn that may be captured as an incidental In the domestic sphere we often see Co Cork and in Gneeveguilla, a small backdrop to a feature narrative. chicken‑feeding, bread‑making, wool spin‑ village in East Kerry boasting a population Some of these films, made for ning and butter‑churning. Images of of 500. The juxtapositions of urban and theatrical exhibition, are familiar and butter churning appearing throughout rural, of modern and traditional, are embedded in international public con‑ these rural films immediately connote a stark. The film documents the purchase, sciousness. Think of Flahertyʼs Man of busy homestead and a warm, nurturing transportation and transformation of Aran, Fordʼs Quiet Man, Leanʼs Ryanʼs womenʼs realm (see The Seasons (1935). two IKEA tables from Dublin to Kerry; Daughter, and think too of the heated Elsewhere, the business of churning a research visit to The Butter Museum in debates which continue around the butter is seen as an essential agricultural Cork; the setting up of a carpentry work‑ Gareth Kennedyʼs IKEA Butter Churn for authenticity of their representations of skill for which training must be provided shop in an uninhabited modern house in Gneeveguilla is a compelling and joyful Irish rural life. Other works are less well in a formal educational environment (see Gneeveguilla; the deconstruction of the celebration of folk life tradition in known – ethnographic films made outside Gael Linnʼs Bantracht na Tuaithe (1956) table, its reconstruction as butter churn Ireland. It intrigues, informs and rewards the broadcast arena, documentaries made and The March of Time: Ireland (1945). and firkin; the invitation to villagers to multiple avenues of enquiry. for educational purposes and amateur Kennedyʼs project sits side‑by‑side turn up and churn up; and finally, the Kennedyʼs project appropriates a community films created primarily for with these works. It assimilates aspects parading of the freshly‑filled firkin mass‑produced piece of modern furni‑ consumption by the people they repre‑ of these filmic precedents, yet subverts through the village before it is inhumed ture and re‑fashions it as an artisanal sent. But these latter works, although as many filmic traditions as it appears to in a nearby bog. piece of equipment. By doing so it revisits more modest in their production values, embrace. Constantly interrogating form and re‑creates a new folk tradition around are often the sole visual record of a the production and entombing of butter. people or place and are invaluable to the It also produces a filmic record of the communities they document. They carry process which enshrines the community images of agricultural activity; primitive experience in perpetuity. pre‑modern lives; people isolated and un‑ The project can usefully be consid‑ sullied by urban interventions. They may ered alongside a body of related film share a number of tropes emblematic material which has been made in Ireland and which documents and celebrates folkloric traditions. Irish rural lives, particularly in the remote west and south of the country, have fascinated filmmakers since the advent of cinema in the late 19th century. The recording of these lives on film has resulted in a broad range of work by Irish and foreign filmmakers. Non‑fiction

opposite: Girl churning from The Seasons; Dir. Dr John Benignus Lyons (1935) far right: PJ Lowe and Martin Ashe of Gneeveguilla with cooper Ger Buckley of Midleton Whiskey; 2011 2 3 THE IKEA BUTTER CHURN FOR GNEEVEGUILLA village, in this case, and, like But the voiceover (which appears to be uninhabited but well‑appointed and spa‑ AS Kennedy, Hockings clearly reveres the tra‑ that of the director) tells us there is noth‑ cious house in a seemingly half occupied ETHNOGRAPHIC ditions he records. The filmʼs introductory ing special about the village ʻexcept that modern development on the outskirts of RECORD… plate states, ʻThe village of Dunquin and it is dyingʼ. It is a village with little to the village. But Kennedyʼs film is not the off‑shore were once a offer its young people, the majority of infused with the doom‑laden tone of the secluded preserve of traditional Irish life. whom will emigrate, a village where there earlier works. He has not arrived to Now the dole is displacing earnings from are far more deaths than there are births. salvage pictures of a dying community, the land; commercial trawlers have Kennedyʼs work shares much with to capture tradition before it is too late. Ethnographic filmmakers set out to create destroyed the fishing; families are broken these films. He too is an outsider who Unlike the UCLA crew and Jim detailed and in‑depth records of every‑ when the young people emigrateʼ. The moves into and briefly immerses himself Clark, Kennedy does not appear and is day life and practice within a particular film records the sights, sounds, and in a community and observes and records not audible in his film, but his presence community. They immerse themselves in conversation of the village and inter‑ aspects of their lives. There is an under‑ can be deduced by the presence in the their adopted locale while attempting to views key inhabitants about their lives. lying sense of economic hardship in the village of two somewhat anomalous maintain a level of detachment as they The subjects are aware of the camera work, though more subtly alluded to characters – a rather Bohemian‑looking observe and record its activities, though and their observations about the film than in the earlier ethnographic films. young woman (his friend) and a leather‑ their presence and the impact it makes crew are present within the film itself. This tone can be detected in the location clad biker with a fancy camera (his on the people involved, may be percepti‑ The Irish Village (1959) was made of the butter churn workshop in an brother). ble in their films. Their work is often some years earlier in the small town of prompted by the imminent demise of a Crookhaven, Co Cork, by Jim Clark, a far left: Martin Ashe waxing the butter churn community or tradition and the impetus young British trainee director. Though and firkin crafted from IKEA tables; Production is to salvage images before they become not made by a social anthropologist, it still, 2011 extinct. The work may have the quality has the quality of an ethnographic film, below: Women at an agricultural college training in the churning of butter using end‑ of an elegy. and provides a visual record of life in the over‑end churns. Film still from the March of An interesting example of such village showing scenes of ordinary Time: Ireland (1945) practice is anthropologist Paul Hockingsʼ people going about their daily work and The Village made for the Ethnographic leisure. Fishermen catch lobsters for Unit of UCLA in 1967. Like Kennedyʼs trade and farmers sell cattle. Men drink Butter Churn, made in Gneeveguilla, The in the pub, women wash clothes, dogs Village was also made in a small Kerry sleep in doorways.

5 THE IKEA BUTTER CHURN FOR GNEEVEGUILLA The Seasons is a film made not by a One can easily imagine that Dr Lyons, The sense of legitimacy of the record is AS priest but by a similarly elevated member and indeed Fr Moran and other commu‑ also created by the filmmakerʼs member‑ AMATEUR of a rural community. Dr John Benignus nity recorders, shared Kennedyʼs sense ship (albeit at an elevated level) of the COMMUNITY Lyons was a dispensary doctor in the of precious urgency about their practice. community he (for it is almost always a FILM… little village of Kilkelly in Co Mayo. In They probably owned the only cameras “he”) records. 1935 he produced The Seasons, a film (certainly the only moving image cameras) Kennedy is not part of the commu‑ which meticulously recorded the agricul‑ in the village and so, with a heightened nity he records but his work shares a Perhaps Kennedyʼs work has more in tural, educational and social calendar of sense of civic duty borne of their respected sense of bona fide intent with Moran and common with the amateur community this small village. The finished film, position, they created, what were in all Lyons. His aim is to record a folkloric film, an interesting strand of production was rigorously edited, punctuated with likelihood the only visual records of their ritual. He captures the action with his which features throughout Irish film explanatory inter‑titles (in English and neighboursʼ lives at that time. They appear unobtrusive super 8 camera. The ritual history. Films documenting communities Irish), and included a broad sweep of the to have had remarkable foresight in doc‑ he documents may be a new contrivance, at work and at play were made from the village community young and old, afflu‑ umenting traditions that would change. but it draws directly on a long history of 1920s onwards by fellow residents ent and ordinary. There is great warmth In both The Seasons and Our Town, local domestic and agricultural practice. who could afford the costly means of in the capturing of young men at play there is a sense of authenticity about the It draws too on folk memory, and in its production. A significant body of work in a handball alley, children gathering record. It is a sense often felt, consciously new configuration, it may become part of recording rural (and urban) lives was blackberries in sunny lanes and farm‑ or unconsciously by viewers of amateur future folk memory. produced by parish priests in Ireland, house scenes of butter‑churning. The film film. While we understand that there is a men who occupied a privileged position represents winter and autumn scenes process of selection and editing of in Irish society from where they could in black and white, reserving the more images by the film‑maker, there is too an film their parishes. Many of these films costly Kodachrome stocks for the impression that the images are ʻpurerʼ, are more valuable for being produced by colourful outdoor summer sequences. subject to less manipulation than in more a filmmaker whose gaze transcends The record, now preserved in the IFI sophisticated, professional productions. familial boundaries and embraces a Irish Film Archive is the only photographic The absence of a sound track suggests broader cast. Some, but not all, of the evidence of this small village at that time. there are fewer imposed layers of meaning. activities recorded are of a religious nature (communions, Corpus Christi processions and so on). Quite often the parish priest recorded fair days, schoolchildrenʼs games, and agricultural activity. Father Jackie Moran (1913–86) was a prolific amateur documentarian of the various towns and villages in which he served. In Our Town, a colour and black and white silent film, he records the ritual of an annual childrenʼs parade in Daingean, Co Offaly.

left & far right: Marian procession from Our Town: Daingean; Dir. Fr Jackie Moran (c. 1958). centre: Procession scene from IKEA Butter Churn for Gneeveguilla; Super8 film still (2011)

6 THE below: Bog butter burial; IKEA Butter Churn FOLK LEGACIES… ANACHRONISM for Gneeveguilla; Production stills; 2011 FACT / OF FOLK SUPER 8 FICTION… One hopes aspects of the project will survive within the community of Gneeveguilla. The ritual of the churning What is most unsettling however in IKEA Butter Churn for Gneeveguilla is, first of the butter may continue annually. Kennedyʼs project is his use of super 8 film. and foremost, a work by a visual artist, a The butter will mature in the bog – Super 8 is an almost obsolete medium work which reflects his point of view and remembered or forgotten until found in which was much‑loved by amateur film which manifests a conceit born in his ten or a thousand years. The film will be makers, particularly in the 1960s and imagination. Kennedy has audaciously screened now and may occasionally 70s, for its ease of use, its large frame created a new ritual. It is a work that reappear to be re‑presented to the (much bigger than its 8mm precursor) pays homage to a revered but no longer community – the soundtrack provided and its greater affordability than the practiced folk tradition; which attempts by local musicians, or simply by locals earlier 16mm gauge. When projected, to create new tradition, and which filling the silence with the chatter of the film is blown up and its grain ampli‑ attempts to leave a legacy of the project – recognition and reminiscence. The film fied to create an almost tactile texture both by burying the butter in the bog will retain meaning thanks to the absent from larger gauges. For modern for future folk archaeologists and by strength of local memory and to the audiences, super 8 immediately connotes capturing the performance on film. explicatory inter‑titles which will remind home movies, intimacy, nostalgia, warmth, He has invited the people of future audiences who and what is appear‑ sunshine, holidays, happy days, and sim‑ Gneevenaguilla to join this ritual; directed ing on screen. pler times. Kennedyʼs use of the format their churning of butter, choreographed The film will have resonance for is clever, and at first appears entirely their parading of the firkin through the audiences further afield, outside the appropriate for his recording of a folk town and orchestrated its burial in a immediate locale, who will recognise the ritual. But our expectations are subverted rain‑sodden bog. archetypical quality of the ordinary Irish as we battle with the mixed message: on So is it all fake? Earlier film‑makers village and will be engaged and perhaps the one hand, the film format leads us to (home‑movie makers and community enchanted by the conceit of this devised expect nostalgia and the past, the family film‑makers) were also guilty of narra‑ folk ritual and the anachronisms and the domestic sphere; yet the images tivising their “documentary” material: inherent in its manifestation and its we see are of vast shopping emporia, directing their subjects; insisting on recording. white transit vans, unfinished housing the participation of family and friends; estates, and leather‑clad bikers. Along‑ creating scenarios to stimulate action; side these are images of butter churns demanding that all smile for the camera. and country lanes and parades and a lit‑ There are levels of coercion and tle band of Kerry village folk marching manipulation of truths in even the most through the village following not Puck authentic of “real‑life” amateur films. but a barrel of butter. We are constantly Kennedyʼs ʻcastʼ are all, clearly, surprised by the messages conveyed willing participants in the creation of his through this anachronistic format and folk folly. They are there, a small raggle‑ these chronologically‑displaced images. taggle group, in response to an open invitation to be part of an art work, a folk fiction. There is a palpable sense of curiosity and playfulness in their partici‑ pation. They are not paid but are rewarded by their part‑ownership of the project Following pages: IKEA Butter Churn for and their permanent connection as evi‑ Gneeveguilla; Film stills; Super 8 transferred denced by their appearance in the film. to HD digital; 32'13"; (2011)

8 9 Prologue: The Village Chapter 1: Shopping

11 Chapter 2: The Workshop

12 Chapter 3: The Churning

14 Chapter 4: The Procession Chapter 5: The Burial

16 IKEA as Folk is testament to the expanding and trans‑ formational currency of the ultramodern, exklusiv och slitstark helt I den nya Museum tidens anda (ʻexclusive and durable Pauline Garvey totally in the spirit of the timesʼ).1 The museum visitor reads how this was the time of rebellion, when young house‑ holders eschewed tradition. It was also the time that IKEA developed simple and There is a small museum located in the brightly‑coloured ranges that are now town of Älmhult in southern Sweden that recognized as typical for the retailer. is something out of the ordinary. Here The FEMBO storage series, denim covers, is a gleaning white concrete building rice lamps, removable covers and long‑ with blue gables that is the IKEA corpo‑ wearing, ʻelasticʼ synthetic fibres all rate culture centre called Tilsammans emerged as a response to the relaxation (ʻTogetherʼ). There is nothing from the of the formal aesthetic2 Snaking through exterior that hints that this is a museum, this exhibition, one could interpret the dedicated to a potted history of post‑war trajectory as a movement from tradition Swedish domestic interiors, complete to modern, from old‑world concerns with reconstructed living rooms kitted to contemporary democratic design. out with typical furniture of the time. But such a reading would be mistaken. The exhibits follow a predicable route: Not all the ranges comply with the one passes a series of tableaux typifying modernist label and reproductions of 17th each decade, starting in the 1950s century pieces described as Swedish Gus‑ and eventually arriving at the present tavian style (found in rural gentry homes) moment. The exhibits are accompanied sit amongst the modern sleek series. with descriptive labels and are cordoned‑ This museum would be an unre‑ off with heavy ropes. The 1950s room, markable except that it is part of the IKEA for example, is organised in a formal corporation, available for the training style with an ornate varnished sideboard of staff and select visitors during pre‑ and overhanging crystal chandelier. arranged times. It is a museum of IKEA Porcelain cups stand on a matching as much as a history of Swedish domes‑ coffee table which is decorated with an ticity – the corporation is often projected embroidered cloth. This old‑world feel of through in‑store literature as the natural the 1950s contrasts starkly with the culmination of Swedish post‑war domes‑ 1960s exhibit, with its sleek and simple tic history. What is striking about this coffee and dining tables, constructed in museum is how closely it follows the birch or pine, the style that was later to standard museological format in which take Europe by storm. The 1960s exhibit the visitor is progressively – and passively –

opposite: IKEA Butter Churn for Gneeveguilla; Production still of churn and related utensils; (2011)

19 One arrives into IKEA stores to be outside it either. Little wonder then that greeted by living rooms and bedrooms, the blueprints for the flagship store in kitchens and workspaces kitted out as if Stockholm were based on the Guggenheim educated as one moves through space, emerged in mid‑20th century Sweden, there were real lived spaces. We see museum in New York. and through a series of visual stimuli and when housing exhibitions were common posters of couples and families welcoming This example shows that IKEA as the printed labels. It is striking because just and didactic in purpose. They aimed to us to their homes. Indeed, the human worldʼs largest furniture retailer cannot be yards away IKEA in‑store showrooms interrogate how best to organise, furnish infusion is added through the common boiled down to neat descriptive idioms. play on a similar series of museological and occupy homes, and were widely vision of shoppers lying on beds, sitting But contrasts and contradictions are not themes, but do so in a way that deliber‑ popular. IKEA stores represent another at kitchen tables, or lounging on sofas. exceptional to contemporary experiences ately brings together standard exhibition version of this popular phenomenon of We encounter a betwixt‑and‑between of global phenomena. IKEA is often and commercial practices. IKEA stores housing theatre, but subsume the role sensation: we are not in domestic spaces, nominated as an icon of globalization typify a kind of exhibition centre that of the exhibition into a strictly commercial despite the childrenʼs paintings hanging and homogeneity, but not to be neglected merge housing exhibits into a high per‑ setting. The fact that store tableaux are on fridges or tea cups on tables, but we is the creative potential of its merchan‑ forming commercial enterprise. Whereas commercial does not make them any less feel we are not in a standard commercial dise when in the hands of householders. the Tilsammans museum follows a viable as exhibition centres, where centre either. These showrooms provide Individuals are subjected to a bewilder‑ conventional format, standard IKEA householders go to peruse, ponder and staging posts to try out a domestic scene ing proliferation of goods on a daily basis showrooms are taking this format and contemplate current projects and future before investing in it financially or but at the same time it is through these overturning it. trends. Like it or not, the unassailable emotionally. It is this construction of the goods that we manifest the quality of One commonly overlooked quality lines demarcating museums and com‑ homelike scene that has been described uniqueness: a family home, a personal to IKEA showrooms is their exhibitionary mercial spaces, even within museums, as housing theatre, which is one of the style, a singular relationship with friends 3 quality, their museological tone. IKEA are rapidly being crossed. compelling features that IKEA distinguishes and family. Anthropological research itself from other competing stores. As far clearly shows that although the retailerʼs as one Swedish IKEA manager knows, potential for homogeneity may loom large, this has been the layout as long as IKEA individuals are creative in managing that has been established in Stockholm and potential in balancing their requirements it is the blueprint for all the stores world‑ for thrift with their own individualizing wide. In such situations the visitor feels measures to ʻsingulariseʼ what is other‑ neither inside a real home nor completely wise deemed ubiquitous.4 This process

left: Martin Ashe testing the IKEA butter churn with Béan An Tí Mary McCarthy, at Muckross Traditional Farms, . right: IKEA store at Kungas Kurva, Stockholm, Sweden. IKEAʼs third store which opened in 1965 was inspired by New Yorkʼs Guggenheim Museum.

21 is not necessarily straightforward, and industrialization, but viewing craft only craft and home industry as much as from lend solid form to a nexus of activities and often characterized by conflict. Even as nostalgia is to diminish its potential.6 modernist international aesthetic. Key series of plans: individual action congeals those householders who furnished From this perspective craft opposes moments in the Swedish launch of into something solid and collective. rooms completely in IKEA merchandise everything that IKEA merchandise implies. modern architecture, design and interior Gareth Kennedyʼs construction of the saw their homes as unique, because IKEA purports to cater for modern life. planning in the early 20th century were IKEA Butter Churn for Gneeveguilla merchandise alone does not constitute a It is ideally suited for small space living also milestones in the launch of another highlights this potential. Out of the most home. such as apartments and urban living that craft aesthetic that tends to be written ordinary and potentially homogenous of Moreover the local is no longer lack the roominess of rural locations. Range out of historical documentaries. When things comes the most exceptional of wholly distinct from global, if it ever was. Strategist in IKEA, Lea Kumpulainen, modernist and functionalist styles were goods. Simultaneously the butter churn On the contrary it is though the latter, describes IKEA wares as modernist, launched in Stockholm, they did so and firkin highlights the convergence through ʻworldly thingsʼ that the local is referring to post‑war design trends alongside the established homecraft that between these seemingly oppositional established.5 No where is this more in which clean lines, a bare minimal was exhibited in often the same spaces objects. Kerry butter is also a global apparent than in global retailers such as aesthetic and modern styles gained inter‑ as the modern aesthetic. Homecraft style product. In the past it brought together IKEA that represent global homogenous national acclaim. Scandinavian versions blended with functionalist design resulted village expertise and catapulted it onto goods on the one hand and the singular of this stripped‑down aesthetic are often in a ʻ... Swedish mélange in furniture, tex‑ the world stage in vast quantities. Kerry domestic utensils on the other. In the compared to IKEA design. But what is tiles, and glass wares that was to become butter also defies neat distinctions Dublin store, as in each IKEA showroom missing in this description is that the the essential ingredient in the globally between craft, mass production, regional worldwide, one finds a mix of styles that IKEA style derives from Swedish domestic promoted IKEA styleʼ.7 Occasionally this skill and global distribution. speak to the local demographic as well homecraft comes under direct focus Kennedyʼs project thus recasts as showcase the range as dictated by in IKEA design strategies: wandering simple dichotomies, evoking both butter international service offices. Despite the through the Tilsammans museum one and churn as simultaneously past and global character of the worldʼs largest can read that the launch of the Stock‑ present, local and global, individual and retailer, each IKEA showroom brings holm range in the 1980s was based on collective. Such goods form the ground‑ together a heady mix of global and local. the ʻquintessentially Swedishʼ tradition of work for fresh interpretations of our It is against this background that simplicity with roots in the Swedish turn‑ lives right now. Finally craft can be seen the use of IKEA goods for craft purposes of‑the‑century‑style. as the materialisation of human effort, seems ironically apt. Too often the term Craft as a phenomenon forms a skill or imagination in any guise. Every ʻcraftʼ designates the pre‑industrial or neglected undercurrent to mainstream time we assemble furniture or organise non‑modern ʻlocalʼ as opposed to the cultural practice. Craft has the potential our home we are developing skills. Craft contemporary moment. Craft often to make, construct, create, and execute is required in assembling flat‑pack, implies the pre‑industrial and therefore skill, which happens on a daily basis, but but precisely what is crafted from such is conceptually banished to the non‑mod‑ is rarely spectacular. Furthermore as material remains unscripted. One can ern, peasant lifeways. It can signify loss, material culture, craft objects constitute construct a butter churn or a kitchen. the loss of human skill in the face of and hardwire social relationships. Things

1. 1957 IKEA catalogue quoted in Eva Atle Bjarnestam, 2009 IKEA: 5. See Robert Foster, 2008 Coca-Globalization: Following Soft Drinks design och identitet, Bokförlaget Arena, Sweden, p.31 from New York to New Guinea, Palgrave/ St. Martin’s Press, New 2. ibid, p.30 York. 3. A notable exception is Ursula Lindqvist, 2009, ‘The Cultural Archive 6. See Daniel Miller, 2011, ‘The Power of Making’, in The Power of of the IKEA Store,’ Space and Culture, 12: 43, Sage, pp. 43-62 Making, V&A, London. 4. Igor Kopytoff, 1986 ‘The cultural biography of things: commoditization 7. Barbo Klein, 2000 ‘The moral content of tradition: homecraft, as process’, in A. Appadurai (ed) The Social Life of Things: Commodities ethnology, and Swedish life in the twentieth century’, in Western in Cultural Perspective, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Folklore, vol. 59, no. 2. See p.183 of pp. 171-195.

22 23 Lore, Luck and the Butter, butter making and dairy culture the porridge of high born children, but An oblique sense of the scale of the have been part of Irish society since time not to that of the children of commoners. trade can be seen in a letter the coopers immemorial. Almost half the domestic Travellers to Ireland invariably saw wrote to the butter merchants in 1879. Economy of animals that have been discovered in the Irish taste for butter as a distinct “The stock of empty firkins required archaeological sites in Ireland from cultural identifier. One Englishman, at the commencement of the season is Butter before the year 1100 are from cattle. writing in the early 1600s referred to the generally from 60 to 70 thousands and The standard study on early Irish farm‑ taste of the Irish for “whole lumps of the annual make passing through the Peter Foynes ing lists some thirty variations in Old filthy butter.” John Dunton, writing in crane about 210 or 220 thousand large Irish on the word “bó”, a cow. The roots 1698, describes how his hostess set to casks and if the smaller firkins and kegs of this unique relationship lie in the Irish churning butter with her arms. “surely be adopted, which is very likely, there climate, especially that of south and the heate which this labour put the good ought to be an increase of from 40 to 50 south‑west Ireland. The Gulf Stream, wife in must unavoidably have made thousands.” running along the west coast of the some of the essence of arm pitts tricle At one time or another Cork branded island, makes for mild winters and soft down her arm into the churn..” butter was sold in North America, the West summers and a grass growing season Not all colonisers saw Irish butter Indies, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, whose length is without parallel in the as an object of curiosity or horror. Many Portugal and its colonies, France, the northern hemisphere. The cleric, Gerald saw a business opportunity. Emerging Netherlands, Germany and, of course, of Wales, who visited Ireland in the markets in the Americas for European Britain. Cork butter was the first global twelfth century, wrote “This is the most food combined with the introduction food brand. temperate of all countries... You will of new production and preservation The Butter Exchange served a farm‑ seldom see snow here, and then it lasts methods to create a new economy. In this ing community of 70–80,000 thousand for only a short time... The grass is green economy butter was no longer an item of farmers, primarily in counties Cork, in the fields in winter, just the same as direct consumption or gift exchange, but Limerick and Kerry. The trade cast its in summer... The country enjoys the a commodity exchanged for money. web widely. An extensive road network, freshness and the mildness of spring The city of Cork emerged in the the Butter Roads, linked hitherto remote almost all the year round.” course of the eighteenth century as the areas to the hub in Cork City. Cash George Berkeley, the philosopher centre of the Atlantic butter trade and in advances from butter dealers under‑ and eighteenth century bishop of Cloyne the nineteenth century, the centre of the pinned the rural economy. In 1880 one wrote, this is the land where “the daisy Irish butter trade. Its home was the Cork butter broker, Dominic Cronin, estimated never dies.” Butter Exchange, located in the Shandon that the trade had advanced £32,000 to Number of bog butter finds in Ireland Cows and dairying is a natural area of the city. farmers, roughly €3 million in todayʼs by county (1997) development of this grass culture. Within The scale of the butter trade carried money. the dairy world, butter is the king, for, on from the Cork Butter Exchange still Changing market conditions ended unlike milk, butter has the life enhancing has the power to impress. In 1835 one the reign of the Butter Exchange but Irish property of keeping over a long period. third of all Irish butter exports, 9,000 butter and dairying continues to thrive Butterʼs status is reflected in early Irish tons, came from the Butter Exchange. in the contemporary world, giving us law, which specifies that a visiting lord, By the 1870s the Exchange was exporting some of the countryʼs largest enterprises but only a visiting lord, must be given some 12,000 tons of butter, packed into and the one global Irish food brand, butter every day; butter can be added to more than 400,000 firkins. Kerrygold.

24 25 The reach of butter into Irish In County Antrim butter was among society and culture extends beyond the the foodstuffs offered to a “magical purely economic and culinary into more stone”. The memory survived into the mystical areas. mid‑twentieth century of butter being An early Irish charm against the ill left by the graveside after a funeral. The effects of a thorn, invokes Goibniu, the origins of the practice of burying butter blacksmith to the Tuatha De Danann, in bogs are not fully understood, but (the mythical pre–Christian inhabitants some believe that, at the very least, the of Ireland), states the charm must be practice had magical associations to “laid in butter...and [the butter] smeared placate the gods. Others suggest that it all around the thorn...” In the west of formed part of the mystical marriage of Ireland lumps of butter were thrown into the king to the earth goddess. In this springs and lakes after which the cattle story the butter is a high value gift to the were then driven through the water to bride and takes its place among other restore them to health. A high status goods associated with kingly story of the Cailleach Beare, the wise inauguration. That many of the butter woman healer of Irish mythology, tells finds, such as the Iron Age finds at Graffa, how a man is saved from certain death Inchimacteige and Annaghbeg in County by, on the instruction of the Cailleach, Kerry, were on boundaries supports the asking his wife, to fetch two crocks of suggestion that bog butter has some butter into which he places the soles of his connection with the ascent of a king to feet in overnight. The butter then seeps rule over a territory. This does not pre‑ into his skin and restores him to health. clude other, more mundane, explanations The idea of the benevolent nurturing for the phenomenon of bog butter, such woman associated with butter is repeated as simple preservation or security from in a Christian context in a Life of Saint theft. Brigit, patroness of the island of Ireland, In more recent times, when the who is often represented with a cow and rich mystical associations of butter were a large bowl. The Life tells of how the less apparent, the value of butter was saint was pressed by the wife of a wizard well understood in rural Ireland. It was, to fill the wizardʼs hampers with butter for many farmersʼ wives, the sole access when no butter was ready. Brigit was to an income independent of her husband. able to miraculously fill the hamper The failure of a churn of cream to “break” through the favour of the Lord “for God was a serious matter. A vast body of did not wish to deprive her of honour.” lore survives dedicated to protecting the The benevolence of butter is also householdʼs capacity to perform the apparent in its use to propitiate the mysterious act of turning the white unseen forces, forces which were not liquid, cream, into the golden semi‑solid, always well disposed to human kind. butter.

opposite: Butter casks from the National Museum of Ireland with dates of discovery. From top left running clockwise: Corragarrow, Longford, 1984; Tawnymucklagh, Sligo, 1986; Bellanagare, Roscommon, 1961; Enaghan, Offaly, 1960. 26 The householdʼs capacity to churn matter of particular suspicion, perhaps butter was intimately connected with its not unreasonably as the churning time “butter luck”. As one butter maker put it, was not a normal time for visitors. “Butter making is a chancy business...” The visitor would expect, and be and butter luck was needed to maximise expected to, take a brief hand in the the likelihood of a positive outcome. The process. This enforced participation butter luck had to be protected against reduced the possibility of the visitor baleful forces that might wish to steal it. stealing the butter luck. To be denied the Sometimes it was the fairies that were opportunity of participation was a gross the perceived danger, but, more often transgression of social norms; to refuse than not, the threat came from the was proof positive of ill intent. neighbour. In the lore of butter making, To modern eyes, these traditions the neighbour was a source of threat and may seem a quaint relic of a less enlight‑ an object of suspicion. May Day, when, ened age. But they articulate a funda‑ by tradition, the cows went on to common mental fact, which societies forget, or pasture, was the most dangerous time. ignore, at their peril. Food is important. Taking dew from the grass, water from the well, milk from the cows or fire from the house were all devices by which the butter luck could be stolen. Protective measures ranged from the esoteric, such as bleeding the cattle and then burning the blood, to the more direct method favoured by one Kerry farmer, recorded in 1947, which was to shoot anyone he saw on his land on May Day. The process of churning itself had to be protected beyond May Day. The presence of salt, a horseshoe, a burning ember of coal or turf, the left hand of a dead man or a churn made from mountain ash were all ways to prevent malevolent interference with the churning. An unex‑ pected visitor to the churning was a

this page: Motif from J.P. Sheldonʼs opposite above: Cartouche from Van Keulenbeochʼs Dairy Farming, early 20th century navigation chart of c.1708 illustrating butter making in Munster below: Typology of bog butter casks.

28 Gareth Kennedy Sunniva O’Flynn Production credits/acknowledgements Film score and musicians Kennedy’s work addresses concerns regarding Sunniva O’Flynn trained in the National Film and TV Carpenter: Martin Ashe economies of being and of scale as well as orientation Archive in London and worked in the IFI Irish Film Firkin maker: PJ Lowe Prologue: The Village within the liquidity of contemporary experience. Archives for many years before moving to the Metal Worker: Jason Kearns Polka: The Gneeveguilla Polka It attempts to localise and define in public contexts position of IFI curator in 2008. As IFI Curator she is macro-economic and/or environmental concerns responsible for programming both archival material Béan an Tí: Eileen Fleming Chapter 1: and anxieties. Throughout 2010-2011 he has been and new Irish film for audiences in the Irish Film Seán Nós singers: Christie Cronin & Paddy Doyle Shopping developing an ethnographical approach as an Institute and further afield. Recent curatorial Accordian player: Micheal Dillane Polkas: Din Tarrant’s, The Knocknaboul Polka operational aesthetic within specific locales to projects include This Other Eden: Ireland and Film Toyota Dyna driver: Timmy Brosnan generate ‘folk fictions’. These works draw on the at the National Gallery of Art in Washington; the Bog Diggers: Tom Hogan & Timothy Daly The Museum particular social, cultural and economic history of co-curation with Gabriel Byrne of Revisiting the Museum Director: Peter Foynes Slow Air: Sweet Kingwilliamstown a people and a place to craft work that is a mean- Quiet Man: Ireland on Film at Museum of Modern Art ingful composite of these histories. This work is then New York; and a series of programmes bringing People in procession: Chapter 2: enacted locally by and for that place to generate archival films back to the Irish communities from Eileen Fleming, Oliver Fleming, Martin Ashe, Martin The Workshop contemporary significance. whence they came, often with newly devised scores. Murphy, Ted O’Connor, Terence O’Connor, Karl Hornpipes: The Stack of Barley, Cronin’s Kennedy, Aeneas Seán O’Leary, Óisín O’Leary, Jigs: The Munster Jig, The Humours of Lisheen Kennedy has produced and shown work both nation- Peter Foynes Jack O’Leary, Martina O’Connor, Ambrose Donnelly, ally and internationally. His practice to date includes Peter Foynes has been the Director of the Cork Charlie Cronin, Tim Looney, Emma Houlihan Bog Dig public art work, educational projects, exhibitions, Butter Museum since 2001. He is a history graduate Slow Air: Turas go Tír na nÓg residencies and collaborations. In 2009, he co-rep- of University College, Cork. Super 8 Camera: Gareth Kennedy & Sarah Browne resented Ireland at the 53rd Venice Biennale. Stills photography: Sarah Browne, Karl Kennedy Chapter 3: The Churning The Cork Butter Museum was established in 1997 & Gareth Kennedy Slides: Star Above the Garter, The Lisheen Slide www.gkennedy.info to memorialise Ireland’s dairy tradition and to Event Co-ordinator: Emma Houlihan Solo (Michael Dillane) offer visitors and natives alike an entrance to an Jigs: The Lark in the Morning, Munster Buttermilk Pauline Garvey understanding of this supremely rich heritage. With House/workshop/location: 35 An Paírc, Pauline Garvey is a lecturer in anthropology in the a history that extends back thousands of years, Gneeveguilla; Courtesy of the Brosnan Bros Ltd. Chapter 4: The Procession National University of Ireland Maynooth. Her theo- butter culture engages with the social, business and Transport courtesy of Pat Knee, Gneeveguilla Polkas: The Siege of Ennis, The Rose Tree retical interests are wide, but her research centres economic history of this island as well as its rich Cream sponsored by Dawn Dairies on material culture in contemporary settings. folklore. A particular focus is the nineteenth century Chapter 5: The Burial She conducted doctoral research on Norwegian Cork Butter Exchange, which created the world’s The artist wishes to thank: Slow Air: Táimse im Choladh homes and graduated from University College first global food brand, Cork Butter. Text, image Martin and Amber Ashe; PJ Lowe; Timmy Brosnan and London with a PhD in Anthropology in 2002. More and artefact combine in the Cork Butter Museum to the Brosnan family; Declan Sheehan of Dawn Dairies; Musicians recently, her research has expanded to include create an experience unique to this place. Vincent O’Shea; Sunniva O’Flynn of the Irish Film Flute & Tin Whistle – Joe O’Sullivan an investigation of material heritage in Irish Institute; Pauline Garvey of NUI Maynooth; Peter Banjo – Ciarán O’Sullivan museums and design in a pan-European setting. She Foynes of The Cork Butter Museum; Pat Knee; Ger Concertina – Niamh Dalton is currently writing up ethnographic research on Buckley of Midelton Whiskey; Karl Kennedy; Emma Octave Mandolin & Mandolin – Damien Dalton IKEA consumption in Dublin and Stockholm. Houlihane; Sarah Browne; Julien Dorgere of Super 8 Accordion – Michael Dillane Forthcoming publications in 2012 include Exhibit Ireland; Joe O’Sullivan, Damien Dalton, Joe O’Sullivan Ireland: Ethnographic Collections in Irish Museums, & the musicians of Slieve Luachra; Patricia Recorded by: Damien Dalton in Gneeveguilla, co-edited with Seamas O’Siochian and Adam Drazin, O’Hare of Muckross Folk Archive; Maeve Sikora and Co. Kerry Wordwell press. Finbarr Connolly of the National Museum of Ireland; Music Arrangements by: Joe O’Sullivan & Damien HBO; Hugo Sahlin of Tilsammens Museum, Sweden; Dalton Principal Hugh Ryan & Gneeveguilla 5th Class 2011; Cumann Slieve Luachra; Chris Synnott; Raymonde Hilliard of The Kerry Cattle Society and all the people of Gneeveguilla who helped and participated in the realisation of this work.

With special thanks to Eileen Fleming and the Brosnan Bros. Ltd. for their generous support of this project. 30 31 Colophon Cover: IKEA at Kungas Kurva, Stockholm, Sweden; INSIDE BACK COVER Published as part of Gareth Kennedy’s IKEA Butter 1970s. (UNPRINTED MUSKAT Churn for Gneeveguilla, a per cent for art project, 2011. Photo Credits: BROWN 290 G/M2 Cover, pages 21-22, courtesy of IKEA; Pages 1, 3, 4, Public Art Adviser: Vincent O’Shea 20, Gareth Kennedy; Page 2, courtesy of Susan Authors: Peter Foynes, Pauline Garvey, Sunniva Connolly; Page 5, courtesy of Home Box Office Inc; O’Flynn, Gareth Kennedy Page 6-7, courtesy of Frank Meenaghan & the Father Moran collection; Pages 3, 5, 8, 18, Sarah Proof reading: Sarah Browne Browne & Karl Kennedy; Pages 10-17, Super 8 Film Design and production: Peter Maybury, Stills, Gareth Kennedy; Pages 24, 29, courtesy of www.petermaybury.com Caroline Earwood & the Journal of Irish Archaeology; Printers: MM Artbook printing & repro Page 27; courtesy The National Museum of Ireland; Binder: ______Page 28, J.P. Sheldon’s Dairy Farming; Page 29, Print run: 350 courtesy Cork Butter Museum.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the publisher, except in the context of reviews. The publisher has made every effort to contact all copyright holders. If proper acknowledge- ment has not been made, we ask copyright holders to contact the publisher

ISBN: 978 0 9554976-7-4

Publisher: CottageLab

This project is funded by Kerry County Council and the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government Per Cent for Art Scheme as applied to the -Scartaglin Regional Water Supply Scheme, Southern Section Part B. The Scheme is funded under the National Development Plan Water Services Investment Programme. The works for this major infrastructural project centred in the village of Gneeveguilla.

Kerry County Council