Entries in Joe Kennedy’s 1921 (or 1922) cow-testing diary featured some very notable milk suppliers.

Having volunteered to help draw stones from Kilfarrasy Strand for the building of Kilmeaden Creamery in 1916, the Stonehouse man was trained up in the dairy science faculty in Cork to do cow-testing for butterfat for the Co-op.

Calling to farms to take samples, he would test the milk at a specially installed home laboratory. Reported back to manager Denis Murphy, the results determined what breeding and feed advice individual farmers would be given to improve butterfat levels: the basis by which they were paid.

Joe used a pushbike to cover the Kilmeaden catchment — a large area stretching from Butlerstown over to Dunhill, across to Carrickphilip and on out to Portlaw — but upgraded to a motorcycle (main picture) when he became manager of the Kilbeg branch in the mid-twenties; running the show there until he retired in 1969.