Last batch for Barney

The smell of freshly baked bread wafts around Cully’s Bakery in Arva.

The lingering aroma remains. However the bakers, four Lithuanian people, are long gone by 10am last Thursday morning.

The scent has been greeting Barney Cully for the past 54 years. As he gives a tour of the premises, where breads produced include Cully’s famous batch, sodas and spelt loaves, as well as scones, bracks and cherry logs, Barney explains that baking commences at around 6pm the previous evening and finishes at 2am, give or take.

The goods are gone and delivered to shops in the surrounding counties including Longford, Monaghan, Armagh, Westmeath, Louth, Leitrim and of course Cavan.

The tour of the bakery is given in reverse; starting in the slicing and bagging area. One of seven vans has returned to base after a morning of delivering baked goods.

Barney reveals that he made his debut in the business fresh out of his Leaving Certificate years, delivering to local shops.

“That’s where my trip to Australia was, into the bakery at 3 o’clock in the morning,” he laughed.

“At the time, it was great craic,” he said of going around delivering to customers.

Cully’s has been around for the past 70 years. Barney’s uncle Michael Cully began the business in 1953 when goods were transported by horse and trap. Michael passed away aged just 52 years in 1969. Barney worked under the guidance of his aunt Kathleen or “Auntie Kay” as Barney calls her, taking over the business when she retired.

Back to the original recipe, we go to where the ingredients are stored. Palettes of flour are stacked on shelves around the room - wholemeal, honey spelt, gluten free, buttermilk soda, among others. In the corner is an unmissable flour silo, holding 10 tonnes of flour but with the capacity to hold 20. Suction pipes pull flour from the silo and into the next room, where the method kicks in.

Business “thrived the whole time”, Barney reported, which he puts down to great staff and customers. The family enterprise prides themselves on using the best quality ingredients guaranteeing flavour and, of course, tastebuds don’t lie!

Into the room where the magic happens, Barney explains how the award-winning batch loaf is made. Flour from the silo is ready and waiting, other ingredients namely “yeast, salt, etc” explained Barney are weighed. Cully’s batch loaf is mixed for half an hour “in the old, slow way” and left to rest for another half hour “at least,” a method known as bulk fermentation, an element that gives it an undeniable flavour.

It is then weighed and left to rest again before being moulded into shape and placed in a four-deck oven, which towers above Barney. He pulls out a large tray, still hot from the night’s baking. The oven can hold 17 dozen loaves at full capacity. It is baked at 220 degrees Celsius for two hours, creating a crusty topped and soft middled hearty loaf.

“The customers that we’d be calling to, they’re more like friends to me.

“I would call every one of them a friend rather than a customer.”

At the end of our tour, Barney explains that it is time for him to hand over his apron to his son Brían, or “the new boss” as Barney calls him.

“I feel he has what it takes,” he said.

“Most of the time it was great,” he said, looking back on his years.

“Only for the people who support you, obviously you don’t have a business.

“I would always thank people and I would say, only for people like you, I wouldn’t be in business.”