Heineken Ireland merger timeline

More not-actually-pub related content today - and realistically not even Dublin related; but this can be seen as part two of a probably* only two part series on "how two companies ended up owning the entire pre-1990s Irish brewing industry".

A previous post showed how Guinness bought every rival in the East of the country in a period between 1952 and 1966 (albeit with a joint venture partner who did not exit until 1988); and this post is going to cover how Heineken and its predecessors assembled the breweries of the South West. 

I suspect the earlier acquisition sprees than I'm aware of for Guinness happened due to the Cork practice of tied houses - common in the UK, rare but not unheard of in Ireland outside Cork (see my Dublin coverage); and long divested before Heineken came on the scene.

Something of note is that the same efforts the East Coast breweries were going though - tie-ups with UK breweries, joint marketing arrangements and so on - were being played out in Cork also.

Unlike the Guinness timeline, much of this is already (and better) documented in "Beamish & Crawford - The History of an Irish Brewery" by Donal and Diarmuid Ó Drisceoil, which has some coverage of Murphys activities as well as extensive coverage of the Beamish side of things.

*I may eventually look in to what happened to brewing in the rest of the country, seeing as by the 1960s there were no breweries operating except for those that became part of Guinness or eventually Heineken

1792

Beamish & Crawford (hereafter just Beamish) founded in Cork with a brewery at South Main Street

1856

James J Murphy (hereafter Murphys) founded in Cork with a brewery at Lady's Well

1901

Arnott brewery company of Bandon bought by Murphys - had two breweries, both were closed

Lane brewery company of Cork bought by Beamish and closed.

1913

Brewing and tied house business of Allman, Dowden & Co of Bandon bought by Beamish and brewery closed but bottling operation maintained. Allman's distilling operations continued to 1925.

1962 

Beamish bought by Canadian Breweries of Canada

1964 

Murphys enter trading agreement with Watney Mann of the UK to market Watneys Red Barrel ale across the island of Ireland

1965

It is announced that Watneys have agreed to take an "up top 30%" shareholding in Murphys. It appears this was actually 41%. This is part of a deal to brew Red Barrel at Lady's Well.

1966

United Breweries of Ireland (UBI) formed between Canadian Breweries and Charrington United of the UK, albeit owned 99.98% by Charrington. 

Charrington owned the Ulster Brewery in Belfast, and were connected in ownership to Carling. 

UBI takes control of marketing and management Beamish and Ulster Brewery operations.

1967 

Controlling stake in Murphys bought by Watney Mann

Bandon bottling plant closed by Beamish

Charrington United bought by Bass 

1969 

Canadian Breweries bought by Rothmans of the UK

1970 

UBI cease to control Beamish operations. Oddly, the holding company continued to be used by Bass Plc for Irish operations and now exists as the trading firm for Ladbrokes in Ireland via Bass's past ownership of Coral. Beamish retains contract to produce Bass Charington products.

Watney Mann seek (and fail) to have Murphys wound up over failure to repay loans

1972

Murphys fails financially and is sold to the Irish Government via Fóir Teoranta for £100,000

Canadian Breweries renamed Carling O'Keefe (hereafter Carling)

1974

Beamish express an interest in purchasing Murphys from Fóir. This does not proceed

Beltons, a Dublin pub chain, expresses an interest in purchasing Murphys. This does not proceed

Murphys purchased by a publicans co-op, which does include Beltons.

1979 

Heineken Ireland formed

1981

Murphys is in financial trouble again, and a potential merger with Beamish is discussed, but does not proceed.

1982

Murphys enter receivership

1983

Murphys bought by Heineken of the Netherlands

1986

Elders IXL of Australia (primarily known for Fosters) purchases Courage of the UK

1987 

Elders purchase Carling

As a result of this, Carlsberg pull their contract brewing arrangement with Beamish and transfer this business to Guinness on competitive grounds - not wishing their product to be produced by a significant rival. This would have contributed to the eventual significant loss of jobs during the 1990s modernisation of Beamish as it contributed a significant percentage of volume.

1990 

Elders renamed Fosters

1995

Fosters sell Beamish and Courage to Scottish & Newcastle of the UK

2008

Scottish & Newcastle jointly bought and split between Carlsberg and Heineken - Heineken taking over Beamish

2009

South Main Street brewery closes, production moved to Lady's Well.

Fathers Waiting Rooms - Pubs by Maternity Hospitals

One of the most easily quoted scenes from an Irish movie is that from The Snapper, where Des Curley reveals the weight of his new-born grandchild to a solidly unimpressed fellow drinker, in N1097 Conways on Parnell Street. 

This pub was renowned as being a "fathers waiting room", where - particularly in the days before it was normal for a father to actually attend the birth - men would wait out the final stretch of labour, and possibly try control any nerves with a few pints. Conways has not traded for over a decade now, but there are plans to renovate it.

But Dublin has more than one maternity hospital, and in January 1994 - not that long after The Snapper came out, albeit its not mentioned in the article, the Sunday World's "Pub Spy" column visited the four pubs nearest the four maternity hospitals in Dublin at that time.

Sunday World, 30th January 1994

Notably, not a single one of them was open as of March 2020 and only one has any short-term chance of serving pints to anyone; even if the specific market of worried waiting father drinking has waned.

Pub Spy's usual "pint rating", an officially six point, zero to five pint scale - but which really seems to be one to four with zero and five being very rare curses/accolades, is changed to a "stork rating" for this article; which may have been a slightly confusing choice. For the second pub they visit - after granting Conways four storks - was The Stork on Cork Street. 

Serving the fathers of The Coombe, The Stork, which closed in the early 2000s, was granted 3 storks; with O'Dwyers (most recently S0149 Howl at the Moon, eventually to reopen as a hotel on the same site) opposite the National Maternity Hospital, Holles Street also getting four storks.

The final review, another four storks, was of the Orwell Lodge Hotel, which closed in the mid/late 2000s; and was the nearest to Mount Carmel Hospital, which itself delivered its last baby in early 2014. A rarer smaller suburban hotel that was fully licenced but not heavily based around a nightclub (I don't even think it had one), the Orwell Lodge still befell the same fate as many similar sized hotels - apartments.

The World's slightly obsession with carnal matters, at that time at least, provides suggestions that a coupling in O'Dwyers "Night Train" nightclub, or a stay at the Orwell Lodge, could provide a need to make use of the maternity hospital nine months later.

March 2021 Licence Update

More changes than usual this month

New

1015538 Tallaght Cross Hotel, Tallaght - this has been listed as a residents bar until this month

Reappearances

1009700 The Snug, Stephen Street after being removed last month
S1470 Agnes Brownes, Thomas Street - pub name is now recorded as "Fidelity" and seems to have the same operators as N0099 Big Romance