I just learned that Bláthach apparently didn't originally (i.e. before 1960) mean Butter milk, which was actually called Bainne géar, but instead refered to the fifth produce you could make from milk, the five being:

Im
Leamhnacht
Bainne géar
Uachtar
Bláthach

I spent a lot of my childhood on my granddad's farm, so I think I know what Bláthach refers to, but this anybody know the exact description of what it was?

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The dialect I use is Cork Irish.
Ar sgáth a chéile a mhairid na daoine, lag agus láidir, uasal is íseal

According to Dineen it means buttermilk or buttermilk before cooling. It also means flowery, beautiful or renowned according to him.FGB gives the same meanings.

Certainly, but I've been told (by two native speakers) that this is actually incorrect or at least not traditionally correct, apparently older Irish speakers render Bláthach as buttermilk, but the drink referred to in English as buttermilk is actually Bainne géar and Bláthach is really something else. I think, from they described, it's actually a sort of milk butter, I remember granddad making two things out of churning butter: Butter and this other thing which I believe is Bláthach, but I don't remember exactly what it was.

EDIT: Actually apparently the same thing has happened in English! Buttermilk originally referred to something else! So:

Bainne géar = Modern/Fermented Buttermilk.
Bláthach = Traditional Buttermilk, the stuff left over from making butter.

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The dialect I use is Cork Irish.
Ar sgáth a chéile a mhairid na daoine, lag agus láidir, uasal is íseal

So as people have moved away from the making of the stuff, the semantics shifted and simplified?

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In Brittany there's a traditional fermented milk that you have at breakfast called lait ribot or in Breton laezh-ribod - you mix it with other ingredients as it can be fairly bitter or sour.
There's a page (in French) about the various different kinds of fermented milk that are made fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lait_fermenté
(Loig will be better placed to talk about it than me)

Yeah...what we call "buttermilk" in English is actually a cultured product, made similarly to yogurt, but with a very different flavor. Originally "buttermilk" referred to the liquid that was left behind after butter was made. That "traditional buttermilk" is hard to find anymore, unless you do your own churning!

There also used to be something called "clabber" in the U.S. (said to be originally from Scottish Gaelic "bainne clàbair"...soured milk), in which milk was deliberately left to sour at a particular temperature, creating something similar in texture to yogurt. As it requires raw milk, it's not legal to make commercially in the U.S. anymore.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clabber_(food)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buttermilk

Yes, clabber is often called "bonny clabber' which seems to be derived from bainne

Could it be the curds or whey of Miss Muffet fame?

No I don't think that's quite the same thing. Here in France - where you can still get raw milk (lait cru) and unpasteurised cheeses - but I'm sure the Big Business Brussels Lobby Machine Boys are working on putting a stop to that and making sure we've no choice but to swallow their industrial tasteless wares - I know for a fact that all French cheeses exported to Germany and elsewhere (USA for example) have to be systematically pasturised.
Anyway, curd cheese is known here as faisselle - faisselle being the container with holes in it that lets the whey (petit lait) ooze out and leaves a soft wet cheese that can leave quite a tang in the mouth - especially if you get it fresh directly from the farm. There may well have been the equivalent in Ireland years ago. (sorry if it's OT)

Don't think so. Whey is part of the cheese-making process.