John Arnold: 'After 51 years, I wept as I milked my last cow on my Cork farm'
I have never actually read The Last September, the novel written by Elizabeth Bowen. I know it was set in Ireland during the War of Independence when huge change was imminent in this country.
One literary critic declared that its central theme dealt with “the demise of a way of life that had survived for centuries”.
Those few words kind of summed up my feelings on last Tuesday morning as I milked my herd of cows for the last time.
In this townland of Garryantaggart, the Walsh family were the occupants and farmers in the 1700s. After that there were McGraths, Arnolds, Barry’s and Buckleys.
Around 1871 or 1872, my great great grandfather Daniel Arnold came to this place as a tenant farmer of the landlord James Bury Barry.
From what I know, cows were always milked here; 200 years ago, before the ‘Great’ Famine, every farm had three or four to provide milk and butter for the family. Back then, the cow on Irish homesteads was practically a domestic animal.
In many cases, the family shared a common dwelling with cows. Cow stalls or byres for milking were not needed. Each morning and evening, someone of the family simply sat on the three-legged stool alongside the cow and milked by hand into a bucket.
Sixty years ago, as a small boy, I remember Mam and Paddy Geary and Auntie Jo on occasions sitting on the stools over in the stall with their head resting against the warm stomach of the cow. The cows’ four teats, or paps as we called them, were pulled rhythmically and the squirt of milk made a lovely sound when it hit the galvanised bucket.
As they were milked, the cows would eat hay or mangolds, turnips or beet pulp. They were so used to being in close proximity to humans that they were generally very quiet. Any heifer or cow inclined to kick the bucket was ‘spancilled’ with a rope - her legs tied to prevent her........
© Evening Echo
