Butter. The Golden Export.

Butter is arguably the first major, identifiable export from Ireland. Branded Irish butter was available in tins in the West Indies more than a century ago. As far back as 1769 when the Cork Butter Exchange was formed, daily price quotations were monitored as closely as any blue chip stock. The importance of butter to the economy of Munster, Cork and Ireland itself throughout the last two hundred plus years is undeniable.

The industry has come a long way since its early days of preserving firkins of butter in marshy bogs and burying barrels to hide them from intrepid invaders. The Cork Butter Exchange operated more than 150 years before shuttering its doors. But during that time it became the largest butter market in the world and help build Cork city into a shipping and trading force that continues to this day.