The Dealer was reminded this week by the boffins in RTÉ Archives that it’s been 40 years since a pound of butter sold for 29p in the shops in Ireland.

The European Economic Community (EEC), as it was known back then, had been attempting to balance the dairy market, and had managed to land themselves with a butter mountain the size of Carrauntoohil.

In an effort to get rid of some of their stock, they sold butter in the runup to Christmas at about half its normal price and stuck the words “Christmas butter” on the label since it was December.

Hot potatoes wouldn’t have sold as fast, and Dunnes Stores decreed that only one pound of butter per customer was allowed.

The butter scrum abated, but distant cousins and in-laws were soon recruited to act on behalf of the head of household, with larger families managing to accrue a mini butter mountain of their own.

The Dealer was not complaining and fondly recalls getting a particularly large helping of brandy butter with his Christmas pudding that year.

However, it did put the Dealer in mind of the current situation, where in another balancing act, almost 400,000t of SMP has been bought and stored by the European Commission.

Who knows, maybe half-price “Christmas SMP” will hit the shelves before 25 December.

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