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Arthur's Round:The Life and Times of Brewing Legend Arthur GuinnessPatrick Guinness |
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Ireland's
best-known Irishman, his name and signature in every household
and village in Ireland, and many abroad, is also the least
known. Part of Dublin life for over two centuries, both family
and brewery have passed into legend, but their origins have
been obscured. Here, in the round, these origins are explored
and the story of the man and his background told for the
first time. Various sources are examined and myths about
Arthur laid to rest, many of which were allowed to continue
by his descendants. This narrative traces the family's origins
in Ulster, Gaelic and Protestant-Irish tenant-farmers from
humble backgrounds on both sides, when Arthur's father Richard
appears as a household agent in Celbridge, Co. Kildare, in
1722 to work for Arthur Price, the Protestant Dean of Kildare.
In 1755 Arthur takes on a brewery in Leixlip and joins the
Kildare Friendly Brothers dining club in 1758, marrying and
moving to St James's Gate in 1759/60 where the business developed.
By 1781 he is a patriarch and member of liberal 'patriot'
political groups, diversifying his assets to preserve his
wealth in unsettled times. Of a generation with Edmund Burke
and Richard Brinsley Sheridan, this wily businessman built
an empire that endured and expanded. Family and social history
combine with an account of the brewing process and descriptions
of economic and political backgrounds in a rapidly developing
Ireland, giving a rich weave to this tapestry. Visual sources
include maps, rare original documents, prints and photographs
of associated houses and places, people and artefacts. The
result is a fascinating contextual portrait of an enigmatic
figure, the founding father of one of Ireland's most powerful
dynasties. |
