Glanbia Archives

Mr Herlihy was delighted to see Glanbia’s own archives, representing a number of the old co-operative creameries, which are now part of this ever explanding dynamic Irish company. Minute Books and other records are in situ. There also also records from non-dairy companies and these records have been fully accessioned and are currently available for consultation.

Inch Creamery

Awaiting to be catalogued are the records from Inch Creamery, Co Wexford, which only arrived at Kilkenny Archives recently. These include Minute Books, milk records and a number of framed illustrations including a portrait of Francois Mitterand, President of France, partaking of a Yoplait Yogurt. Inch was an early creamery. Around the beginning of the 1890s the first of the Irish creameries were established. By 1893 there were at least thirty in the country. In 1895 the farmers around Inch came together and set up their creamery with a  foundation date of 29 March 1895. The clergy often paid a key role and Inch is no exception with the then Archbishop of Dublin advancing a loan of £100.00 provided a creamery along the lines of those advocated by Sir Horace Plunkett, who is perceived as the founder of the Irish creamery movement. To put the archbishop’s loan into perspective the site of new creamery was purchased for £10.00 plus ten £1 shares in Inch Creamery. By 1900 there were over 800 co-operatives in the country of which 350 were creameries.

Barrowvale Creamery

One of the oldest illustrative items in the Glanbia Collection is a view of the old Barrowvale Creamery at Goresbridge which buildings have been subsumed into later developments on the site which is just off the Main Street, at Goresbridge, very near the bridge from which ‘Goresbridge’ derives its name: the really old name for the area as opposed to the site at the bridge was Grange Silvae. The surname Gore commemorates a family of that name which built the nearby Barrowmount House in the very early years of the eighteenth century, which for many years in the last century was owned by Jack Donohoe, formerly of Lower Grange and Ballellen, whose family would have supplied milk to Barrowvale. Jack Donohoe and his wife Lulu are best remembered for their ownership in the 1960s of the famous mare, Height O’ Fashion.

Other Archival Collections

Kilkenny Archives is also home to the following collections: The Prior-Wandesford Family Papers; The Barton of Ballyline (Callan) Papers; The Paper of the Estate Office of Kilkenny (A.G. Davis); Kilkenny Castle Papers; Gowran Castle Papers; Kavanagh Estate Papers, Ballyragget; The Maidenahll-Lavistown Papers; The Briggs-Swifte Papers; The Wheeler-Cuffe Papers of Lyrath and The Papers of the Praesidium of Our Lady Queen of Charity (Legion of Mary).

Kilkenny Archives’ direct landline number is 056-7753622
Website: www.kilkennyarchives.ie
Arising from this extended facility Kilkenny Archives are in a position to accept further donations.