Making an Irish Free State City – New uses for the Historic Butter Exchange

Welcome to the 25 year anniversary of the start of this column! Since October 1999, it has been a very interesting weekly pilgrimage of sorts to discover the story of Cork and its myriad of tangents.

One story, which has popped up frequently is the story is that of the Cork Butter Market.

This month, 100 years ago in 1924, coincided with a rapid decline in the fortunes of the market and in particular talk about the closure of the core building in the heart of Shandon began in earnest.For centuries, Cork had occupied a leading position as a great centre and port of exportation for butter.

The emergence of the Cork Butter Market in the nineteenth century achieved extensive success in establishing trading networks in British colonies. By 1892, the Cork Butter Exchange building was handling annually 500,000 casks of butter, valued at £1.5m. In the early twentieth century, Cork exports represented one third of the total butter export from Ireland.

The publication, ‘Cork, Its Chamber and Commerce – a Cork Chamber of Commerce' book from 1919, outlines that considerable improvements in the quality of the butter were made in the early 1900s to keep pace with foreign competition and with the establishment of numerous factories and creameries. Butter became manufactured on scientific principles. Enormous quantities of creamery, factory and farmers’ butter were made up in tins and oaken packages and these were exported to the four corners of the world.

Margarine was invented by a French chemist Meg Mouries, circa 1870 and first came into commercial processes in 1872, when it was manufactured exclusively in Holland. Hence it was originally known as Dutch butter. It was soon realised that the south of Ireland was eminently suited for its manufacture owing to the large supply of milk available.

The first margarine factory in the United Kingdom was established in Limerick and later transferred to Waterford. Later again, three margarine factories were set up in Cork. The increasing population and prosperity of Great Britain created a ready market.

The total export of margarine from Cork exceeded 7,000 tons a year and was rapidly increasing. In the second decade of the 1900s, the development of the margarine industry impacted unfavourably upon the butter trade. In addition, butter from France and Scandinavia began to severely challenge the Cork butter industry.

In late 1924, due to profound competition that caused declining prices and profits, it was decided by the market’s trustees to sell off the historic Butter Exchange building in Shandon.

Strikingly and very much the end of an era and the start of another, new uses were called for the elaborate Butter Exchange building and its weigh house. An advertisement in the Cork Examiner on Saturday 27 December 1924 notes that W Marsh and Sons Auctioneers were instructed by the trustees of the Butter Market to sell by auction at their salesrooms, 70 South Mall, on Friday 9 January 1925 at 1pm, the extensive city premises known as the Cork Butter Market. It was held in fee simple and purchased from the Landed Estates Court in February 1859. The premises for auction was described as “All That and Those of the Butter Weigh House of Cork, and the Portico and new extended front thereof, situate in Shandon Church Street, Mulgrave Street and Cody's Street, in the City of Cork”.

The advertisement further relates that the “extensive premises” were most centrally situated within easy reach of railways and shipping quays and comprised a “spacious warehouse with fine ground floor accommodation, measuring approximately 120 foot x 140 foot, substantially built and well lit from the roof, with the main portico entrance in Exchange Street and valuable frontage extending down Church Street, with several entrances therefrom”. There was also a caretaker's residence attached to the premises.

The property was being sold with clear possession and held free of rent. As the Cork Examiner highlighted, the premises offered “a rare opportunity to City Merchants, Manufacturers or Warehousemen seeking well situated extensive promises adaptable to any wholesale trade requiring spacious ground floor accommodation”.

On 9 January 1925, at the public auction no bid was received for the property. Mr John Ronan, Solicitor, represented the firm having carriage of sale. Messrs W Ronan, Solicitors, and FL Blake, was present on behalf of the Cork Butter Market trustees. The Cork Examiner recorded that there were only about six members of the general public in attendance. Mr W Donoghue conducted the proceedings. He announced the conditions of and dealt with the suitability of the famed institution as a business property. He invited bids and no bids were made. The premises were withdrawn from sale by auction.

By 14 October 1925, the Cork Examiner reports that Messrs James Daly and Sons had bought the greater portion of the Butter Market premises. A part of the building was still in the possession of the trustees, who used it for some trade in butter.

A 1942 obituary in the Cork Examiner reveals that James Daly (1856-1942) was born at Moycollop, county Waterford in 1856. James began his business life in his native district as a butter and egg merchant.

At an early age, he founded and was managing director of the firm of James Daly and Sons, Ltd, which had bases on Cork’s Shandon Street, Dominick Street and Mulgrave Road. James was one of Cork’s most enterprising and successful Corkonians. His association with the butter industry extended over half a century from the 1880s to the early 1930s.

Under his own personal supervision, James merited for his firm a worldwide reputation and employed many people. In addition to the butter industry, the firm were also proprietors of the Shandon Castle Margarine Factory, which was established until 1905 and erected on the site of the ancient Shandon Castle. He was one of the trustees of the Cork Butter Exchange and in time he was the principal sponsor of Daly’s Bridge.

On 4 July 1923, the Cork Examiner reported on a serious outbreak of fire in the historic Butter Exchange building, which was brought under control by Cork Fire Brigade. Reference is given that the building had just been acquired and fitted out as a small knitwear factory by William Dwyer. He remained in situ until the early 1930s when the business moved and was expanded and moved to the former site of Cork Spinning & Weaving Company in Blackpool.

Meanwhile T O’Gorman and Sons, Garters, Braces, Hats and Caps took over the historic Butter Exchange building and operated its business there until 1976.