Arthur Guinness Guinness & Leixlip The Guinness story · Guinness establish brewery in Leixlip...
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HIS LIFE STORY A rthur Guinness was born in 1725, near Celbridge in County Kildare, though there is some speculation about the exact date and place of his birth. What we can say with confidence is that in 1752, aged 27, his godfather the Archbishop of Cashel, Arthur Price, left Arthur and his father Richard £100 each in his will. Arthur used the money to set up a brewery in Leixlip, as shown on the map. The lease for this brewery dates from 13th September, 1756 and a copy of the original lease is displayed in the nearby Courtyard Hotel. In 1759, Arthur left the brewery to his brother Richard, and acquired the lease to the now famous site at St. James’s Gate in Dublin. The Archbishop Dr. Arthur Price is interred in St. Mary’s Church beside Arthur’s Square. THE COMPANY, THE BRAND The Guinness brand is not just an Irish success story. It is one of the world’s most recognised brands. Like many companies, it had small beginnings, though it is fair to say with Arthur Guinness at the helm, the brewing company had canny leadership from the start. At the age of 34, he signed a 9,000 year lease on a disused brewery site at St. James’s Gate in Dublin. The annual rent was £45. A decade later, the company’s first export was a modest six and a half barrels, bound for England. By the time Arthur passed away, aged 78, his son, Arthur Guinness II was able to take over the running of the business, and the dynasty began. It was, by 1833, the largest brewery in Ireland, and in 1886, it was a public company quoted on the London Stock Exchange, and had an annual output of 1.2 million barrels. By 1929, 2 million pints of Guinness were sold a day, and in the same year, the company launched the hugely successful and landmark advertising campaign with the “Guinness is good for you” slogan, and the cartoon series featuring the famous line: “My Goodness, my Guinness.” By 2012, 10 million glasses of Guinness are enjoyed in over 150 countries around the globe. And it all started in a small brewery in Leixlip! LEIXLIP CASTLE AND THE MAIN STREET T o this day, there are still strong connections between the town of Leixlip and the Guinness family. When Arthur first set up the brewery at Castleview in 1756, it began a relationship with Leixlip that has existed for over 250 years. Arthur was responsible for developing the brewery site by the river, and also the terrace of houses around what is known as Ralph Square. In the following year, he also bought the lease of the site where today we find the Mall along the Main Street. He designed it to be tree-lined and set back from the road, similar to the northern part of what is Dublin’s O’Connell Street, but was known then as the Mall. Arthur’s younger brother Richard lived at Castleview until the early 1800s, and at some point he owned the lease of the nearby Salmon Leap Inn. He was also a trustee of the turnpike road which ran from Lucan to Kinnegad, and was involved in the realignment of the road to avoid the steep section at the Old Hill. He was a compatriot of Captain William Brady who built what is today the Leixlip House Hotel. The road was named Captain’s Hill after him. Various parts of the brewery site and the Mall remained in the family until the 1970s. Prior to that, in 1958, the Hon. Desmond Guinness bought Leixlip Castle, perhaps Ireland’s oldest continuously inhabited house. Coincidentally, Desmond was 27 when he acquired the castle; the same age Arthur was when he set up the brewery in Leixlip. The castle was built in 1172 by Adam de Hereford on a rocky outcrop overlooking the confluence of the Rye River and the River Liffey, following the Norman Invasion of Ireland in 1169. It has been modified and extended over the centuries. Needless to say, the brewery would have had an excellent view of the castle, hence its name, Castleview! Desmond and his first wife, Mariga (the former Princess Marie Gabrielle of Urach), founded the Irish Georgian Society in April 1958 to help preserve Irish architecture. One of the early preservation cam- paigns was at the nearby Obelisk (Connolly’s Folly) and in 1967-79, the Guinnesses bought and started to preserve Castletown House, in Celbridge, Kildare, said to be the finest Palladian house in Ireland. It was saved from demolition and is now in the hands of the state (run by the Office of Public Works). The magnificent Palladian-style Castletown House and grounds in nearby Celbridge, Co. Kildare is now open to the public. LEIXLIP & GUINNESS: THE BREWING LEGEND BEGINS! Arthur Guinness; 1725 - 1803 10thC 5thC 1700 1900 2000 2,000BC 8,000BC 16,000BC Ireland covered in ice sheets c. 8,000 BC: First Mesolithic hunters c. 2,000 BC: Bronze Age technology arrives c. 500 BC: Iron Age and Celtic inuence c. 6th Century: Golden Age of Irish monasteries 795 AD: First Viking raids 917 AD: Battle of Confey 1014 AD: Battle of Clontarf; Brian Ború killed 1169 AD: Strongbow lands in Wexford. Norman Conquest begins 1315 AD: Edward the Bruce campaign to rally support against Anglo-Normans 1494 AD: Poyning’s Law curbs power of Irish Parliament 1594 AD: Nine Years’War in Ulster against Elizabeth I 1172 AD: Leixlip Castle; construction begins 1317 AD: St. Mary’s Church destroyed 1607 AD: Flight of the Earls 1725: Arthur Guinness is born 1740: Harsh winter and famine; Connolly’s Folly built 1776: American Declaration of Independence 1789: French Revolution. Washington elected President in America 1798: Irish Rebellion defeated 1800: Act of Union 1803 AD: Robert Emmett rising defeated 1817: Severe famine 1828: Daniel O'Connell campaigns for Catholic Emancipation 1879 AD: Land League campaigns for fair rent 1972: Bloody Sunday 1922: Irish Civil War 1973: Ireland joins the European Community 1999: Ireland adopts the Euro currency 1914-18: World War I 1939-45: World War II 1845-49: Great Irish Famine 1861-65: American Civil War 1917-18: Russian Revolution 1756: Arthur and Richard Guinness establish brewery in Leixlip 1803: Arthur Guinness dies 1862: Guinness ‘harp’ logo trademarked 1929: 2 million pints of Guinness sold a day 1950: 5 million pints of Guinness sold a day 1769: First shipment of Guinness to UK 1690 AD: Battle of the Boyne 1577 AD: The Great Comet 432 AD: Saint Patrick returns to Ireland c. 3,500 BC: Neolithic monument built at Newgrange 1828-1918: Fenian William Francis Roantree is born in Leixlip 1945: Leixlip dam completed 1884: GAA founded 1989: Intel arrives in Leixlip 1886: Guinness joins London Stock Exchange; becomes world’s largest brewery; annual production is 1.2 million barrels 1998: The Good Friday Agreement is signed 1800 1743 AD: Wonderful Barn is built 1709 AD: Great Frost; coldest winter in 500 years 1649 AD: Cromwell invades Ireland 1722 AD: Castletown House under construction A BRIEF HISTORY TIMELINE OF IRELAND... AND A WEE DROP OF GUINNESS! N.B.: The timeline is compressed in three phases and is therefore not to scale. Guinness is good for ‘flu... 1893: Author Robert Louis Stevenson brought supplies of Guinness to Western Samoa. He drank it to aid his recovery from the ‘flu! Guinness; extra, extra cold! 1909: Antarctic explorer Sir Douglas Mawson left some Guinness behind at his base camp, to be discovered 18 years later! The harp is born... 1862: the Guinness trademark oval, buff-coloured label with harp and signature is introduced for the first time. The inscription reads: “Here are deposited the remains of Doctor Arthur Price. Lord Arch Bishop of Cashell who died the 17th July 1752. Aged 74.” Below: The weir on the River Liffey, now dismantled. St. Mary’s Church is visible in the background. (Originally published between ca. 1865-1914. © National Library of Ireland) Original Brewery Site The original brewery site at Castleview is marked in red. The River Liffey was traversed by a weir. The mill race shown to the bottom left of the map extended down to a mill (shown below, pictured circa 1900). Some of the mill buildings still exist today at the end of Mill Lane, though the mill race has largely vanished. Leixlip Town Council would like to thank Patrick Guinness, the Guinness Archive and Diageo Ireland for their generous assistance in the production of this poster. The black and white photographs of Leixlip are by Robert French, 1841-1917, from the Lawrence Collection. © National Library of Ireland. THIS INFORMATION BOARD IS PART OF THE ‘ARTHUR’S WAY’ TRAIL. VISITORS ARE ENCOURAGED TO VISIT OTHER SECTIONS OF THE ROUTE, INCLUDING CELBRIDGE, THE BIRTHPLACE OF ARTHUR GUINNESS, AND OUGHTERARD CEMETERY, IN CO. KILDARE, WHERE HE IS BURIED. Leixlip Town Council Newtown House 41 Captain's Hill Leixlip, Co. Kildare. Tel: 01-6245777 Fax: 01-6246666 E-mail: [email protected] Comhairle Baile Léim an Bhradáin Teach an Nuabhaile 41 Cnoc an Chaptaein Léim an Bhradáin, Co. Chill Dara. Guthán: 01-6245777 Faics: 01-6246666 Ríomhphost: [email protected] “The Castle of Leixlip, at that period, possessed a character of romantic beauty and feudal grandeur, such as few buildings in Ireland can claim.” ‘Leixlip Castle’ by Charles Maturin Taken from The Literary Souvenir, or Cabinet of Poetry and Romance, 1825 The Guinness story T HE GUINNESS SUCCESS STORY IS WELL KNOW TO ALL LEIXLIP LOCALS, BUT BEYOND THE BORDERS OF THE TOWN, WITH THE EXCEPTION OF A FEW HISTORIANS, FEW PEOPLE REALISE THAT WHERE YOU ARE STANDING NOW IS ONLY A HUNDRED YARDS AWAY FROM WHERE THE BREWING LEGEND BEGAN. ARTHUR GUINNESS WAS BORN NEAR CELBRIDGE IN COUNTY KILDARE. IN 1752, HE WAS LEFT £100 IN A WILL. HE USED THE MONEY TO SET UP A BREWERY IN LEIXLIP WITH HIS BROTHER, RICHARD. IT TOOK SEVERAL YEARS FOR THE BREWERY TO ESTABLISH ITSELF, BUT IT GAVE ARTHUR THE CONFIDENCE TO MOVE HIS OPERATION EASTWARDS INTO THE CAPITAL CITY OF DUBLIN. THE REST, AS THEY SAY, IS MOST DEFINITELY HISTORY! Above: Part of the 1759 lease, showing the famous Guinness signature that is synonymous with the brand worldwide. Left: The 1862 oval label that bears the harp symbol and the Guinness signature. 1755 Brewery 1756 Houses to let 1775 Houses to let Arthur Guinness Guinness & Leixlip Above: Interior view of cooperage at St. James’s Gate Brewery, where coopers are at work, c.1900. Left: The iconic Toucan from the artist John Gilroy, created in the 1930s. His work was used up to the 1960s. Left: Barges being loaded at Victoria Quay, c. 1955. The barges transported casks to ships in Dublin’s docklands for export around the world. design: www.thedrawingboard.ie Ale is out, stout is in... 1799: Arthur Guinness takes the important step to stop brewing ales and from then on only brews ‘porter’, or stout. Below: Leixlip Castle and Boathouse, viewed roughly from the site of the original ‘Castleview’ brewery. (Originally published between 1880-1900. © National Library of Ireland)
Transcript of Arthur Guinness Guinness & Leixlip The Guinness story · Guinness establish brewery in Leixlip...
HIS LIFE STORY
Arthur Guinness was born in 1725, nearCelbridge in County Kildare, thoughthere is some speculation about the exact
date and place ofhis birth. Whatwe can say withconfidence is thatin 1752, aged 27,his godfather theArchbishop ofCashel, ArthurPrice, left Arthurand his fatherRichard £100 each
in his will. Arthur used the money to set up abrewery in Leixlip, as shown on the map. Thelease for this brewery dates from 13thSeptember, 1756 and a copy of the original leaseis displayed in the nearby Courtyard Hotel.
In 1759, Arthur left the brewery to his brotherRichard, and acquired the lease to the nowfamous site at St. James’s Gate in Dublin. TheArchbishop Dr. Arthur Price is interred in St.Mary’s Church beside Arthur’s Square.
THE COMPANY, THE BRANDThe Guinness brand is not just an Irish successstory. It is one of the world’s most recognisedbrands. Like many companies, it had smallbeginnings, though it is fair to say with ArthurGuinness at the helm, the brewing company hadcanny leadership from the start.
At the age of 34, he signed a 9,000 year lease ona disused brewery site at St. James’s Gate inDublin. The annual rent was £45. A decade later,the company’s first export was amodest six anda half barrels, bound for England.
By the time Arthur passed away, aged 78, hisson, Arthur Guinness II was able to take over therunning of the business, and the dynasty began.It was, by 1833, the largest brewery in Ireland,and in 1886, it was a public company quoted onthe London Stock Exchange, and had an annualoutput of 1.2million barrels. By 1929, 2millionpints of Guinness were sold a day, and in thesame year, the company launched the hugelysuccessful and landmark advertising campaignwith the “Guinness is good for you” slogan, andthe cartoon series featuring the famous line:“My Goodness, my Guinness.”
By 2012, 10 million glasses of Guinness areenjoyed in over 150 countries around the globe.And it all started in a small brewery in Leixlip!
LEIXLIP CASTLE ANDTHEMAIN STREET
To this day, there are still strongconnections between the town of Leixlipand the Guinness family. When Arthur
first set up the brewery at Castleview in 1756, itbegan a relationship with Leixlip that hasexisted for over 250 years. Arthur wasresponsible for developing the brewery site bythe river, and also the terrace of houses aroundwhat is known as Ralph Square.
In the following year, he also bought the leaseof the site where today we find the Mall alongthe Main Street. He designed it to be tree-linedand set back from the road, similar to thenorthern part of what is Dublin’s O’ConnellStreet, but was known then as theMall.
Arthur’s younger brother Richard lived atCastleview until the early 1800s, and at somepoint he owned the lease of the nearby SalmonLeap Inn. He was also a trustee of the turnpikeroad which ran from Lucan to Kinnegad, andwas involved in the realignment of the road toavoid the steep section at the Old Hill. He was acompatriot of CaptainWilliam Brady who builtwhat is today the Leixlip House Hotel. The roadwas named Captain’s Hill after him.
Various parts of the brewery site and the Mallremained in the family until the 1970s. Prior tothat, in 1958, the Hon. Desmond Guinnessbought Leixlip Castle, perhaps Ireland’s oldestcontinuously inhabited house. Coincidentally,Desmond was 27 when he acquired the castle;
the same age Arthur was when he set up thebrewery in Leixlip. The castle was built in 1172by Adam de Hereford on a rocky outcropoverlooking the confluence of the Rye River andthe River Liffey, following the Norman Invasionof Ireland in 1169. It has been modified andextended over the centuries. Needless to say, thebrewery would have had an excellent view of thecastle, hence its name, Castleview!
Desmond and his firstwife, Mariga (the formerPrincessMarie Gabrielle ofUrach), founded the IrishGeorgian Society in April1958 to help preserve Irisharchitecture. One of theearly preservation cam-paigns was at the nearby
Obelisk (Connolly’s Folly) and in 1967-79, theGuinnesses bought and started to preserveCastletownHouse, in Celbridge, Kildare, said tobe the finest Palladian house in Ireland. It wassaved from demolition and is now in the handsof the state (run by the Office of Public Works).
The magnificent Palladian-style Castletown House and grounds innearby Celbridge, Co. Kildare is now open to the public.
LEIXLIP & GUINNESS: THE BREWING LEGEND BEGINS!
Arthur Guinness; 1725 - 1803
10thC5thC 1700 1900 20002,000BC8,000BC16,000BC
Ireland covered in ice sheets
c. 8,000 BC:First Mesolithic
hunters
c. 2,000 BC:Bronze Agetechnology arrives
c. 500 BC:Iron Age andCeltic in!uence
c. 6th Century:Golden Age ofIrish monasteries
795 AD:First Viking raids
917 AD:Battle of Confey
1014 AD:Battle of Clontarf;
Brian Ború killed
1169 AD:Strongbow lands in
Wexford. NormanConquest begins
1315 AD:Edward the Bruce
campaign to rally supportagainst Anglo-Normans
1494 AD:Poyning’s Law
curbs power ofIrish Parliament
1594 AD:Nine Years’War
in Ulster againstElizabeth I
1172 AD:Leixlip Castle;constructionbegins
1317 AD:St. Mary’sChurchdestroyed
1607 AD:Flight ofthe Earls
1725:ArthurGuinnessis born
1740:Harsh winter andfamine; Connolly’sFolly built
1776:AmericanDeclarationof Independence
1789:French Revolution.
Washington electedPresident in America
1798:Irish
Rebelliondefeated
1800:Act of Union
1803 AD:Robert Emmettrising defeated
1817:Severefamine
1828:Daniel O'Connellcampaigns forCatholic Emancipation
1879 AD:Land League
campaignsfor fair rent
1972:BloodySunday
1922:Irish Civil War
1973:Ireland joinsthe EuropeanCommunity
1999:Ireland adoptsthe Euro currency
1914-18:World War I
1939-45:World War II
1845-49:Great Irish Famine
1861-65:American Civil War
1917-18:Russian Revolution
1756:Arthur and RichardGuinness establishbrewery in Leixlip
1803:ArthurGuinnessdies
1862:Guinness
‘harp’ logotrademarked
1929:2 million pints ofGuinness sold a day
1950:5 million pints ofGuinness sold a day
1769:First shipment
of Guinness to UK
1690 AD:Battle ofthe Boyne
1577 AD:The Great
Comet
432 AD:Saint Patrick
returns to Ireland
c. 3,500 BC:Neolithic monumentbuilt at Newgrange
1828-1918:Fenian WilliamFrancis Roantreeis born in Leixlip
1945:Leixlip dam completed
1884:GAA founded
1989:Intel arrivesin Leixlip
1886:Guinness joins London Stock Exchange;becomes world’s largest brewery;annual production is 1.2 million barrels
1998:The Good Friday
Agreement is signed
18001743 AD:
WonderfulBarn is built
1709 AD:Great Frost;coldest winterin 500 years
1649 AD:CromwellinvadesIreland
1722 AD:CastletownHouse underconstruction
A BRIEF HISTORY TIMELINE OF IRELAND... AND A WEE DROP OF GUINNESS!
N.B.: The timeline is compressed in three phases and is therefore not to scale.
Guinness is good for ‘flu...1893: Author Robert Louis Stevenson brought supplies of Guinnessto Western Samoa. He drank it to aid his recovery from the ‘flu!
Guinness; extra, extra cold!1909: Antarctic explorer Sir Douglas Mawson left some Guinnessbehind at his base camp, to be discovered 18 years later!
The harp is born...1862: the Guinness trademark oval, buff-coloured labelwith harp and signature is introduced for the first time.
The inscription reads: “Here are deposited the remains ofDoctor Arthur Price. Lord Arch Bishop of Cashell who diedthe 17th July 1752. Aged 74.”
Below: The weir on the River Liffey, now dismantled.St. Mary’s Church is visible in the background.(Originally published between ca. 1865-1914. © National Library of Ireland)
Original Brewery Site
The original brewery site atCastleview is marked in red.
The River Liffey was traversed bya weir. The mill race shown to thebottom left of the map extendeddown to a mill (shown below,
pictured circa 1900). Some of themill buildings still exist today atthe end of Mill Lane, though themill race has largely vanished.
Leixlip Town Council would like to thank Patrick Guinness, the GuinnessArchive and Diageo Ireland for their generous assistance in theproduction of this poster.
The black and white photographs of Leixlip are byRobert French, 1841-1917, from the Lawrence Collection.© National Library of Ireland.
THIS INFORMATION BOARD IS PART OF THE ‘ARTHUR’S WAY’ TRAIL.
VISITORS ARE ENCOURAGED TO VISIT OTHER SECTIONS OF THE ROUTE,
INCLUDING CELBRIDGE, THE BIRTHPLACE OF ARTHUR GUINNESS, AND
OUGHTERARD CEMETERY, IN CO. KILDARE, WHERE HE IS BURIED.
Leixlip Town CouncilNewtown House41 Captain's HillLeixlip, Co. Kildare.Tel: 01-6245777Fax: 01-6246666E-mail:[email protected]
Comhairle Baile Léim an BhradáinTeach an Nuabhaile41 Cnoc an ChaptaeinLéim an Bhradáin, Co. Chill Dara.Guthán: 01-6245777Faics: 01-6246666Ríomhphost:[email protected]
“The Castle of Leixlip, at that period, possessed a character of romanticbeauty and feudal grandeur, such as few buildings in Ireland can claim.”‘Leixlip Castle’ by Charles MaturinTaken from The Literary Souvenir,or Cabinet of Poetry and Romance, 1825
The Guinness storyTHEGUINNESS SUCCESS STORY IS WELL KNOW TO ALL LEIXLIP LOCALS,
BUT BEYOND THE BORDERS OF THE TOWN, WITH THE EXCEPTION OFA FEW HISTORIANS, FEW PEOPLE REALISE THAT WHERE YOU ARE
STANDING NOW IS ONLY A HUNDRED YARDS AWAY FROM WHERE THEBREWING LEGEND BEGAN.
ARTHURGUINNESSWASBORNNEARCELBRIDGE INCOUNTYKILDARE. IN 1752,HE WAS LEFT £100 IN A WILL. HE USED THE MONEY TO SET UP A BREWERY INLEIXLIP WITH HIS BROTHER, RICHARD. IT TOOK SEVERAL YEARS FOR THEBREWERY TO ESTABLISH ITSELF, BUT IT GAVE ARTHUR THE CONFIDENCE TOMOVE HIS OPERATION EASTWARDS INTO THE CAPITAL CITY OF DUBLIN.THE REST, AS THEY SAY, IS MOST DEFINITELY HISTORY!
Above: Part of the 1759 lease, showing thefamous Guinness signature that is
synonymous with the brand worldwide.
Left: The 1862 oval label that bears the harpsymbol and the Guinness signature.
1755 Brewery
1756 Houses to let
1775 Houses to let
Arthur Guinness Guinness & Leixlip
Above: Interior view of cooperage at St.James’s Gate Brewery, where coopers
are at work, c.1900.
Left: The iconic Toucan from the artist JohnGilroy, created in the1930s. His work wasused up to the 1960s.
Left: Barges beingloaded at Victoria Quay,c. 1955. The bargestransported casks toships in Dublin’sdocklands for exportaround the world. d
esign:www.thedrawingb
oard.ie
Ale is out, stout is in...1799: Arthur Guinness takes the important step to stopbrewing ales and from then on only brews ‘porter’, or stout.
Below: Leixlip Castle and Boathouse, viewed roughly from the site ofthe original ‘Castleview’ brewery.(Originally published between 1880-1900. © National Library of Ireland)
