Were you ever on the butter road? For most people, I suppose, the question is - what is a butter road? The butter road is a unique thing. It runs in almost a straight line from Killarney to the old butter market in the Shandon area of Cork.
It played its part in the British Empire and often, where the sun never set, it was butter which had come along that road that men and officers were using in the farflung outposts.
On May 1st the road will celebrate its 250th anniversary. The Government has just announced a £200 million investment package for improvements to non-ational roads. How many of them will be celebrating birthdays?
The butter road is different. For one thing, not many people know about it, and so, mirabile dictu, it is almost traffic-free. Is it foolish to reveal this? Probably.
The Aubane Historical Society, Mushera Mountain as a back drop.
And it is there that the Aubane society will organise its festivities during the May bank holiday. A commissioned monument will be unveiled; there will be a reception in nearby Millstreet Country Park; on May 2nd, there will be an 18th century, period-dress banquet at Duhallow Park Hotel and on the following day, at the Aubane Community Centre, a day of traditional arts and crafts, including butter-making, threshing and music.
The local gentry, who used to finance roads in those days and then charge tolls, felt the idea of building a straight road from Killarney to Cork - a revolutionary concept at the time - was not on. It fell to one John Murphy of Castleisland to complete it.
He raised the money with the gentry acting as trustees but he lost heavily on the project - as much as £4,000, a huge amount in the 1700s. The irony is that when the road was constructed the Cork Butter Exchange was not yet in existence. When it did, and the road tolls might have saved him, Murphy was in deep financial trouble.
What became of him? Finding out is a project the Aubane Historical Society believes should be tackled next by local historians.