https://www.thesun.ie/news/4387654/guinness-good-for-us-not-irishness/ ‘Guinness is good for us’ but not for our Irishness as brand becomes more recognisable around the world than Ireland itselfOliver Callan
31 Jul 2019, 8:30
IT is the single most popular tourist attraction in Ireland.
A brand that has become more recognisable around the world than Ireland and Irishness itself.
The home of Guinness had 1.7 million visitors last year, a quarter of a million ahead of the Cliffs of Moher and a million more than Tayto
Park.
Its 20th millionth visitor since 2000 passed through its doors in April. The Guinness Storehouse is again rammed this week, the busiest week in the annual peak period for holidaymaking. It is the epicentre of our tourism, but is the factory of the black stuff really the most appropriate destination for those thirsting for a definition of Irishness?
How Irish is it anyway? Guinness is British-owned these days, something that might have pleased its anti-rebel founder Arthur. Its biggest shareholder is a Swiss-based multinational fund.
Although it’s still brewed in its original St James’ Gate home, it has fallen far down the list of popular drinks among Irish boozers.
Dutch brew Heineken has been on top for years now with Guinness a lowly sixth on the best-selling alcohol brands in the country.
Most visitors to St James’s Gate are American at 28 per cent, followed closely by the Brits at 26 per cent.
Many Americans will always namecheck Guinness when they’re asked about Ireland, but if you tell them that you never or rarely drink the black stuff, they’re pretty stunned.
If you told them that Ireland is not the first, or even second, biggest market for the stout, they might just fall over. That Britain is on top, followed by Nigeria, could send them over the edge.
Oddly, Americans who walk through the storehouse which tells the story of the stout and its owner are probably tasting it for the first time when they reach the Gravity bar at the top.
Guinness is 26th on the list of top beer brands in the US behind the lesser-known Milwaukee’s Best Ice.
The top beer brands in the US are so all-consuming that to be outside the top ten puts you into relative obscurity, where Guinness has just a 0.5 per cent market share.
The story of Arthur Guinness himself, who popularised the local stout from 1759 in Dublin, does not lend itself well to the story of Ireland.
The founder, a proud Protestant, considered himself a staunchly British subject and was opposed to independence or Home Rule.
His ancestors followed his political allegiances, at one point funding the UVF’s gun-running at Larne before the outbreak of World War I. Workers at St James’s Gate were warned not to parade or consort with rebels in the run-up to the Easter Rising.
It’s clear which side the Guinness empire was on in the battle for independence. However, there are redeeming tales too, the Guinness family leaving a legacy of philanthropy that ought to be celebrated more than their contribution to Ireland’s reputation for the drink.
Iveagh House, today’s Department of Foreign Affairs, was gifted to the State by a Guinness heir in 1939. The Iveagh Gardens at the rear became a public park where Taste of Dublin and the Vodafone Comedy Festival are held each year. St Stephen’s Green was a plot purchased by Arthur Guinness’ grandson and also gifted to the country as a public park.
Guinness money was instrumental in restoring St Patrick’s Cathedral in the 19th century and Ireland’s first public library, the nearby Marsh Library. They also donated hugely to Dublin’s Coombe maternity hospital.
The Guinnesses built more social housing than the present Government, having established the Iveagh Trust. Some 125 years later, today it owns and manages 1,400 social housing units in Dublin. It also runs the Iveagh Hostel, the largest hostel for homeless men in Ireland.
A visit to the Guinness Storehouse gives a fascinating and paddywhackery-free tour of Ireland’s most famous drink. For a small business on the banks of the Liffey to become the largest brewery in the world in the late 19th Century is some story.
Even for Irish eyes, a trip to the Storehouse is an eye-opener. The area around the visitor centre, full of cobbled streets and tall, matte-dark brick factory buildings, is reminiscent of movies set in prohibition-era New York.
This most iconic of places feels oddly unfamiliar. Inside, the vast crowd bustle gives a sense of the former hub of human activity the Guinness plant once was. The huge, iron-girder lined interior feels like you’re entering a living industrial space two and a half centuries old.
The centre is staffed with career workers who know what they’re doing and some have been working for Guinness in some form for decades.
With tickets starting at €18.50 per adult including a pint of the black stuff with gorgeous views from the panoramic Gravity bar, it doesn’t feel like a traditional Irish rip-off. Guinness is not the best definition of Irishness but its importance in attracting visitors cannot be overstated.
