Old Butter Roads Festival takes place in Shandon next weekend
Farmer and cheese maker Dan Hegarty with Jean-Baptiste Enjelvin of Hegarty's Cheese, Máire Ní Mhurchú of Activity Days and Danielle O’Donovan of The Butter Museum for the launch of the Old Butter Roads Festival. Picture: Clare Keogh
All roads lead to Shandon next weekend as the Old Butter Roads Festival celebrates Cork’s unique place in food history.
The butter roads were established from the 1740s onward to bring butter churned in farmhouse kitchens from the pastures of Cork, Kerry, and Limerick to the markets centred around Shandon.
This weekend’s festival programme offers a mix of free and ticketed events for food lovers, families, and those with an interest in culinary history and culture.
The festival will be launched at 7pm on Thursday, October 8, at the Butter Museum, in an evening that will also see the launch of Joe Harrington’s Once Upon a Road, a history of the butter road from Listowel to Shandon.
Over the course of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday the Butter Museum will open for free with butter making demonstrations at midday each day.
On Friday evening Shandon will be abuzz with activity, with the Butter Exchange Band playing live on O’Connell Square and a cheese and bread tasting at St Anne's Shandon.
There will also be a talk at The Butter Museum with Kate Ryan of flavour.ie and master cooper Killian O’Mahony, the launch of the ‘Butter/Spuds/Cheese/Fish’ exhibition at the Firkin Crane.
Saturday will feature a food heritage walking tour, with Kate Ryan talking about the first foods. The day will culminate with a night of food and folk with Butter Roads songs with Ger Wolfe, stories with Maria Gillen and with the Cronin sisters of the Farmgate Café cooking up bitesize tastes from The English Market at Bakestone Perry Street.
Sunday will be a day for families with special events for junior tastebuds and interests. From the sweets of Cork with Shandon Sweets and The Chocolate Shop, to sowing seeds for future harvests with Education for Sustainability and animal-based crafts with both animal origami and making pottery cows and sheep, all events are drop-in and centred around O’Connell Square.
The festival ends with a talk by culinary historian Regina Sexton talking about spiced beef at the Butter Museum with tastings of James Nolan’s spiced beef from around the corner on Shandon Street.
App?
