A lump of butter weighing 22 pounds was unearthed from an Irish bog by turf-cutter Jack Conway last week – an estimated 2,000 years after it last saw the light of day.

Mr Conway, from Maghera in County Cavan, was working on Emlagh bog in County Meath when he made the discovery. He contacted the Cavan County Museum to report his find, and the butter has since been sent to Ireland’s National Museum for preservation.

The Cavan County Museum said on its website: “Bogs are excellent preservative properties – low temperature , low oxygen and highly acidic environment.

“In early medieval Ireland butter was a luxury food often used as a means to pay taxes and rents. It was sometimes used as a offering to the spirits and gods to keep people and their property safe – when used as offerings it would have been buried and never dug up again.”