The following is a short extract from the interview transcript, copyright of the Cork Folklore Project. If you wish to access further archival material for this interview or other interviews please contact CFP, folklorearchive@gmail.com
H K: What about milk and cake shops? Did ye?
M F: Yeah, there was one on Barrack Street down on the left-hand side of Barrack Street called Ciste Milis, Ciste Milis yeah. Now when we were younger all we did was look in because we couldn’t, we wouldn’t have the money to buy the cakes you know. Eventually, then you might get – you’d go in and you’d buy maybe one cake and a glass of milk.
H K: What kind of cakes were they?
M F: Em, they were like they were Thomson’s Cakes mostly at the time. Beautiful now: pastries and snowballs, éclairs, em you’d be very lucky if you bought the cake; ‘twas like looking into fairyland I suppose with all the beautiful cakes and then there was another on in Sullivan’s Quay called Mrs Mac’s. You could go in there and sit down and the one thing – time that stands out in my mind before my father went to England. He brought me up to the dogs on the Western Road, the greyhound track, and all I can remember is I couldn’t see a bit with all the people in front of me but he must’ve won anyway and we came home in a sidecar and he brought me into Mrs Mac’s below for cakes and milk.
H K: And what? How would they keep the milk fresh then, it wouldn’t be pasteurised now like, you know.
M F: Oh no, it was only just in big jugs.
H K: And where would you get that from?
M F: Well the milkman used to come around even to the -- you know you’d buy it eh they used to come around. There was a shop down here not too far away from us and they used to bring the churns in and they’d just pour it from the churns into jugs. They used to have big enamel jugs. There was a milk shop on Barrack Street called Gill’s, we used to get the milk there; just go up with your jug and get a half pint or a pint.
H K: They’d fill your jug?
M F: They’d fill the jug for you. Yeah and I can remember now going to that shop down there, we were going down to school, and my brother was very young, he was only after starting school. My sister and myself walked ahead and we looked back for him and he was after