In 1934 when Lisselton Creamery opened first, there were 364 farmers bringing milk. They were short one for every day of the year! There had been a creamery years before at Lisselton Cross where the car sales premises are now, and there had been a creamery at the Switch in Francis’s Field. The Lartigue ran beside it. There was another one at the Store Height on the left going over the Chapel Road in the old days. There was the Travelling Creamery in the 1950s and later. It was a big lorry which came to the creameries and collected milk.
My days in the creamery started on Friday, May 15th, 1965. It was a good day to start – at the end of the week – but I had to work all the weekend.
I got the job through Richard O’Connor (RIP). He owned a shop across from the creamery and was a good neighbour and friend of mine. He told me to go to Kit Ahern (RIP) in Ballybunion. I had no car so Richard drove me to see Kit, who said she would let me know the following week. She contacted my mother then and said there was a vacancy coming up and that Bill Hartnett (RIP), the manager, would call me. And he did and so off I went to Lisselton Creamery. Nobody from the family before had worked in the creamery. I was throwing in the milk there and was there for only a few months. I wasn’t going to stay at all in the start. I found it very hard. But I got used to it and loved it there after a while. It was a dangerous job with the acid and the caustic. Nitric acid and caustic were used for cleaning the pipes and sulphuric acid for testing the milk. A drop of milk was put into the sulphuric and it would tell what percentage of cream was in the milk. I got burned twice with acid. It burned through my trousers and left its mark.
Then I spent four years going around to the branches. I used to drive to different creameries where I was driving the forklift, painting, unloading manure and covering for holidays and sick leaves. I went to most of the branches during these years and worked with six or seven managers.
After a while I was moved to Coolbeha. I used to have to get up at half-past five in the morning. An early rise! My Dad was alive at the time and he used to call me. I bought an Anglia car with a ZX registration. I had it for about a year and a half and then I bought a Mini from Horan’s who had come to Listowel. I got a loan of £200 off the Dairy Disposal Board and the creamery manager assured the Board that I wouldn’t go off once I got the loan! Later, in the 1970s, I had a Vauxhall.
In Coolbeha there wouldn’t be time for a morning break as I was feeding coal into the boiler. When a farmer arrived with the new milk, it often took three men to lift the tanks and pour it in. The fella before and after him would give him a hand. The milk was then separated and the cream would go into separate containers. The skimmed milk would go into different containers and then given out to the farmers who fed calves with it. We had an hour for lunch from one till two. I used to come home from Coolbeha for my lunch most of the time. In the afternoons I used to tidy up the stores and the yard and organising the manure for the next day. When I started first we used to finish at a quarter to six. Then later that was changed to half-five and then to five o’clock. Babe Dowling had a shop across the fence from the creamery and people did their shopping there. I spent nine years in Coolbeha Creamery.
After Coolbeha I came back to Lisselton Creamery and spent twenty years there. There were 230 farmers bringing milk there at that time. I can remember the farmers who had donkeys and carts. I remember John Costello (RIP) from Ballyegan had one. I remember Paddy Henchy (RIP) from The Hill and John Healy (RIP) and others who brought their milk in those days. Mattie Deenihan back the road used always have a chat. Max Feeney (RIP) used to come for Mick Finucane and was very witty. One day I said to him “You didn’t throw out all the milk!” and Max said to me “What about the cats!” Mike Nolan and John McMahon were regulars. A few women used to come to the creamery and I remember Peggy Finucane (RIP) well. There was also a woman from Coolard, Mrs Moriarty (RIP) who used to come with a donkey. Seán Deenihan (RIP), and Paddy Sullivan (RIP) from Lacca were among the others I saw every day. All the farmers were nice to me. Meeting the farmers was great every day and having the craic!
There were a lot of horses before the tractors were used and then the cars came with the car-trailers. They were the worst because they were too low and you would have to bend down to lift them up. In the finish they had bulk tanks. At a later stage we had two “soakers” in Lisselton. These were big tubes that sucked the milk out of the tanks and there was no need then to lift them up.
The creamery book was an important item for every farmer as it kept an account of the milk given in, as well as butter given out by the creamery. These were green and every farmer had his own number. Every month then the creamery cheque was issued and that was very important! It was a long time though to wait for many farmers! The manager and myself used to get the cheques ready, and it took a long time to do this. You would be working on them till seven in the evening sometimes.
There was manure sold at the creamery also – Pasture Sward, Cut Sward and Nitrogen.The creamery manager was an important man. I worked with a lot of them. Bill Fitzgerald (RIP) was in Lisselton and Coolbeha and was a very nice man. I worked with Paddy Dowling (RIP) in Kilcolman; Jimmy Hanrahan (RIP) in Ballylongford, and Tony Sullivan in Tarbert. The people who worked with me at the creamery in Lisselton were lovely. I worked with Tony Mason (RIP), Willie Dee (RIP), Dave O’Sullivan (RIP), Eamon Holly and Paddy Halloran.
My daughter Eileen used to help me during summer holidays in the later years, answering the phone and coding products. Even though she didn’t get paid, she loved it and it gave her great experience. When some people would ring up and hear Eileen’s voice, they would hang up because they thought there was no woman working in the creamery! The phone number of the creamery was (068) 47104.
I was a store manager for the last years as there was a farm shop opened and we sold all sorts of items for farmers.
My own last day at the creamery was June 12th, 1998. I became very ill and I was sent to the hospital. I am the last permanent employee in Lisselton Creamery. I had spent thirty three years and one month working at the creameries altogether. I missed it a lot.
The creamery closed down for good on June 1st, 2001… and for me, it was the end of an era!