Ireland is not known as one of the great food cultures, yet most Irish households carry a sought-after gourmet ingredient: Kerrygold. It’s no secret that Irish butter is loved internationally for its rich, smooth taste and strong colour. Our grass-fed cows produce melt-in-your-mouth deliciousness that other countries struggle to replicate. Irish people regularly list Kerrygold as one of the key tastes of home. But where does this connection come from? And does Kerrygold deserve it?
If we lined up Ireland’s total butter exports from that year they would wrap around the earth three times
Ireland’s relationship with butter goes back 3,500 years. Archaeologists have uncovered more than 500 examples of people burying butter in bogs since the Iron Age. Explanations for the burial of butter range from fermentation and preservation to ritual significance. Butter was also used as currency in Ancient Irish society, indicating how central and deeply rooted it has always been in our lives. Butter’s power as literal and symbolic currency has not diminished over the years. Kerrygold’s iconic foil and colour presents the butter slab as a golden ingot, our nation’s buried treasure. More literally, Irish dairy exports were valued at €6.3bn in 2023. In 2019, RTÉ reported that if we lined up Ireland’s total butter exports from that year they would wrap around the earth three times. Kerrygold alone makes over €1bn internationally. It is the number one brand of butter in Germany, and the second biggest in the US. It is so popular that the cooperative that owns Kerrygold, Ornua, has a plant in Germany on the newly renamed Kerrygoldstrasse (Kerrygold Street). Irish butter has made the full transition from an ancient ritual to a gargantuan industry that now outstrips the planet. How did a domestic staple of Irish society gain such worldwide acclaim?
Kerrygold is therefore neither primarily an Irish consumer product, nor is it even from Kerry necessarily
Kerrygold as we know it was the invention of Sir Anthony “Tony” O’Reilly in 1962. As the general manager of An Bord Bainne (now Ornua), O’Reilly developed Kerrygold as an umbrella brand for the export of Irish butter. A quick look at some of its suggested names (Buttercup, Tub-o-gold, and Leprechaun) indicates how it profited from a sentimental view of Ireland. Initially launched in Manchester, Kerrygold was not sold in Ireland until 1973, coinciding with our membership in the European Economic Community (EEC). Kerrygold is therefore neither primarily an Irish consumer product, nor is it even from Kerry necessarily. Tony O’Reilly, more prospector than farmer, provides a very different face to Kerrygold than the meadow-grazing cow of its branding. O’Reilly was a 29 time capped Irish rugby player, former CEO of Heinz, resident at the “big house” Castlemartin estate, and husband to Greek Heiress Chryss Goulandris. He was pro-Chancellor of Trinity for over 10 years, knighted in 2001, and became bankrupt in 2016, among many many other things. He died earlier this year at the age of 88, leaving a legacy as the most important Irish businessman of the 20th Century. His greatest accomplishment, Kerrygold, is less a specific butter than a genius marketing and branding campaign that placed Irish dairy on a global stage.
The success of these advertisements rests on how they use butter to articulate desire, homesickness, and appetite.
Kerrygold’s marketing prowess has continued long into its 62 year history. Famous TV ads such as “who’s taking the horse to France?” and “put a bit of butter on the spuds André” have become Irish colloquialisms since they were first aired in the 90s. In 2009, their ad “The Sod” used the classic Irish issue of emigration – “we export all our best stuff” – as the emotional drive behind its new slogan “Made of Ireland”. Kerrygold has established itself as metonymic for home, not just representing Ireland, but made of it and changing with it. In 1974, German artist Joseph Beuys created “Irish Energy”, a piece that consisted of two peat briquettes sandwiching Kerrygold butter. Maybe Bueys and Kerrygold are right, perhaps butter is the fuel behind Irish life. It’s deeply connected with both the land and the home. It’s sumptuous but unassuming, the facilitator of brilliance and yet totally ordinary, as important to gourmet cooking as it is to toast. The success of these advertisements rests on how they use butter to articulate desire, homesickness, and appetite. Does butter’s commodified aspect really undermine its role in Irish culture, here and abroad? Maybe Kerrygold is simply modern bog butter, with an equally commercial and ritual purpose.
The question of Kerrygold’s significance represents the struggle of living in an Ireland that is confused as to whether its legacy is its cultural complexity or its low corporation tax. From one angle it’s a mirage, the product of a globalised business enterprise that commodifies the authenticity it markets: merely a brick of fat and the fuel of greed. On the other, it is the rich and enriching outcome of our greenest fields. A symbol of our ritual domestic life, wrapped in the finest gold. Whether you think it’s overrated or unmatched, Kerrygold is most certainly the taste of home.
