Old Butter Roads Festival returns to Cork City 9 - 11 October

 

Old Butter Roads Festival returns to Cork City

9 - 11 October

This October all roads lead to Shandon as the great Old Butter Roads Festival is revived in the heart of Cork City from the 9th to 11th of October. 

The Old Butter Roads Festival celebrates Cork’s unique place in food history. Beef fattened on the rich pastures of Cork, Kerry, and Limerick, along with butter churned in farmhouse kitchens, all made its way to the markets centred around Shandon along ‘the Butter Roads’. 

The packed 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 on Thursday 8th October, along with Joe Harrington’s history of the Butter Road from Listowel to Shandon Once Upon a Road at The Butter Museum in Shandon. Over the course of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday the Butter Museum will open for free with butter making demonstrations at 12.00 each day. No booking required. 

On Friday evening Shandon will be abuzz with activity from 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, The Butter Exchange Band playing live on O’Connell Square and a meet the producers cheese and bread tasing at St. Anne's Shandon. 

On Saturday, there will be more tastings with a Food Heritage Walking Tour, Kate Ryan talking about the first foods – Blood and Milk. 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 delicious bitesize tastes from The English Market at Bakestone Perry Street. 

Sunday is 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 sewing 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. 

Festival Chairperson Máire Ní Mhurchú said “It’s great to see a festival celebrating the rich food heritage of Cork revived and reimagined. In its new home of Shandon, this festival links food producers based in the county with sites that were once the epicentre of Cork commerce … when Cork was the larder of the world. Hundreds of years later Cork is still home to amazing producers, based in both the city and the county, and all Butter Roads lead to Shandon this October as we celebrate the best of Cork food.” 

The Old Butter Roads Festival is generously supported by Cork City Council, Fáilte Ireland and Ireland’s Ancient East. For more information on all festival events see the festival page on The Butter Museum website www.thebuttermuseum.com