February 22, 2012

I am writing this blog to explore the Irish dairy industry, both past, present, and future. 

I grew up on a dairy farm in Central Pennsylvania, so the dairy industry has always held a special place in my heart.  As a student at Penn State, I have been given the opportunity to travel abroad to Ireland as a part of my studies and I wanted to learn more about how their dairy industry is different or similar to what I grew up with.

Ireland has a much longer history than the United States, so I decided the best place to start researching was the beginning.

Ireland is home to the earliest known remains of dairying in Europe.  Preserved under 5m of peat bog, the Ceide Fields in the west of Ireland dates dairy farming as early as 5,700 years ago.  Here, they found an area of ten square kilometers of dairy farmland that was organized and separated by dry stone walls into dairy farmland.

Ceide Fields

Until this point, most of Europe was lactose intolerant beyond infancy and had no reason to consume dairy products.  The theory is that these early dairy farmers were the first to have the mutated lactose gene appear that allowed them to digest milk proteins.

With these changes, family units were more stable and population growth wasn't hindered by unpredictable food supplies.  From here, the Irish were able to move toward political organization and taxes in the form of food were collected from each family.  In fact, a year's tuition for a boy going into the priesthood consisted of a dairy cow, a sack of malt, a sack of corn, and a calf.  

Dairy cattle were important leverage tools during this time because milk and their products were staple foods.  According to Brehon Laws, a divorced woman was entitled to one sixth of the produce of the churn after her husband left her.  Most importantly, cattle were used as internal warfare.  A successful cattle raid lowered the status of the owner of whose cows were taken, but because of their importance the result was immediate submission.  

A page from Brehon law tract

I'm not sure if the legends folklore mimicked the importance of dairy, but they also described dairy's role in history. In a version of the epic "Cattle raid at Cooley", for example, Queen Maeve of Connaught was mortally wounded by a skim milk cheese flung from the sling of her nephew.  Another legend tells of an attempt made to kill Saint Patrick with poisoned cheese.

Citations:

Irish Dairy Board. (2011). Retrieved February 22, 2012, from History of Dairying in Ireland: http://www.idb.ie/section/HistoryofDairyinginIreland

Irish History Timeline. (2011). Retrieved February 22, 2012, from Early Ireland: 8000 BC-fourth century AD: http://www.irishhistorylinks.net/Irish_History_Timeline.html#Early_Ireland

Linnane, J. (2000). A History of Irish Cuisine. Retrieved February 22, 2012, from Before and after the potato: http://www.ravensgard.org/prdunham/irishfood.html