I Ain’t Afraid Of No Goat!

Get ye to church…

he Black Lion Inn (or Health Food Then & Now)

The area known as Blacklion was named after a coaching inn on the main Dublin-Wexford road – the Black Lion Inn.

The earliest written reference (according to Liam Price) was a diary entry dating from 1765 recording a meeting in the inn between a Mr. Fairbrother and the Sheriff. I believe the structure – in whole or part – is what is now the veterinary practice at the bottom of Applewood Heights.

In an advertisement in Saunder’s News-letter dated 8 March 1793, the proprietor Catherine Hickey was touting the availability of sea bathing and goat’s whey at her establishment. I started to see a number of other notices around those times of houses for sale or rent and using a local supply of goat’s whey as a selling point. This piqued my curiosity.

Goat’s Whey

“I’ll go into Wales for six weeks, and drink goat’s whey — and I’ll gain seven years longer life for the accident.” from Tristam Shandy by Laurence Sterne (1759).

Whey is the liquid left over when the milk solids (curds) are removed.Are Goat’s milk whey was considered the best of all.

Fashionable in Lowland Scotland in the mid-Eighteenth Century, goat’s whey was provided to health tourists at many mineral water spas. However it soon fell out of favour there. At the same time it became increasingly popular in Ireland, starting in the North, primarily in the Mourne Mountains. Prime Minister Walpole “being in a very bad state of health, came to Ireland to drink Goats Whey at the mountains of Moran, by which he perfectly recovered.” The mountains in South Dublin were later turned over to goat milk production.
Many medical treatises described its beneficial properties. A vaccine against smallpox, a cure for ‘consumptions’, palsy, diseases of the bowel, and a top-notch hangover cure. The areas of Dundrum and Milltown were renowned for their goat’s whey. Dublin rakes of the era, after a night of debauchery, would wake early, ride out of the city and drink a pint of whey there. Cynics claimed that the amount consumed far outstripped the amount that could be produced by the goats in the area and that much of what was offered was just salted cows’ milk. They suggested that early rising and exercise was the real hangover relief.

Today, dried whey powers (including dried goat’s whey) are popular nutritional supplements for athletes and bodybuilders.

You’ll find more Blasts From The Past right here.