The Nationalisation That Wasn't

On March 5th, 1917, an announcement was made to the Irish Stock Exchange that all breweries in the UK - which still included Ireland - had been taken over by the Government. 

Evening Herald, March 5th 1917

Except they hadn't.

There was certainly a proposal to do so, and it had begun regionally in Britain in 1916 (or possibly 1915) - with breweries and their tied house estates being taken over in Carlisle/Gretna, Enfield and Cromarthy Firth under the State Management Scheme, which limited operations with the idea that it would improve performance of local munitions factories by reducing drink consumption. However, as far as I can see the March 1917 'event' was, at best, a political suggestion that was never acted on.

The rumours about what was happening extended as far as suggesting that only Guinness would be left open, with concern over how this would impact the range of beer available in Ireland if so

Irish Independent, March 6th 1917

Handily enough, the same article gives us a listing of the breweries they considered to be large enough to be bought out; effectively a snapshot of the industry at the time. Many of these ended up being bought by Guinness eventually, with the Cork consolidation (or the 20th Century bit of it anyway) already finished

• Guinness, Dublin
• Castlebellingham & Drogheda Brewery, Louth
• Phoenix Brewery, Carlow
• J Sullivan & Son, Kilkenny (in Liquidation by this stage)
• Murphy & Co, Cork
• Dungarvan Brewery
• Caffreys Brewery, Belfast
• Mountjoy Brewery, Dublin
• Watkins, Jameson, Pim & Co, Dublin
• Drogheda Brewery, Drogheda
• Great Northern Brewery, Dundalk
• Macardle Moore & Co, Dundalk
• E Smithwick & Son, Kilkenny
• Strangmans Brewery, Waterford
• Deasy & Co, Clonakilty
• McConnells Brewery, Belfast
• Cairnes & Co, Derry
• Youngs Brewery, Limavady

An Evening Herald article also mentions there being a H&G Simonds brewery in Dublin which would be... odd anyway, as this was one of the old Burton breweries; but may just have been a depot to supply the significant number of military bases in the city at the time.

The Freemans Journal gives us a more detailed list of breweries, including those which the Independent had decided weren't large enough for whatever reason. This list includes the following additional breweries, showing there was at least still some brewing occurring in Connacht at the time, although not for long.

• Wickham & Co, Wexford
• Cassidy & Co, Monasterevin
• WJ Downes & Co, Enniskillen
• P.H. Egan, Tullamore
• Foley & Co, Sligo
• P. Kiely & Sons, Waterford
• G.H. Lett, Enniscorthy
• W Livingstone, Westport
• T Murphy & Co, Clonmel
• R Perry & Son, Rathdowney

There was, as you might expect, uproar at these proposals with significant concern about employment - with much of the commercial core of Dublin still being in ruins, brewing was a even more important part of the cities economy than normal; and regional papers report concerns about local taxation income from both the regional breweries and pubs if these closed due to poor supply. As was the case with everything related to the drinks trade at the time, temperance representatives got their oar in pushing for as hard a closure of premises as possible.

By mid-April, coverage of this issue in the newspaper had died down, but there was still a war on and breweries weren't going to come out unscathed.

There were already capacity limits on breweries - intended to save grain for food - and withdrawal of spirits from bond, presumably to make existing stocks last longer; in place since early in the war. May raised the potential of proposed cap on specific gravity of 1.040 which would limit ABV to, erm, about 4%? (Hopefully someone with brewing experience can give a proper figure here). Its always written as 10.40 rather than 1.040 so possibly there's something else I don't understand here.

Irish Independent, May 17th 1917

This gravity restriction did not come to pass, but access to malt supplies were further restricted from May.

As far as I can tell, despite an official denial by the Chancellor - the type that often means something *is* happening - occurring in late May, and a suggestion that the purchase plan was back on in mid June; this was basically the end of there being any chance of the state taking over the breweries. But there was plenty of continued noise for the next few months.

Suggestions of buying out and closing up to 40% of pubs in certain "congested" areas - provincial towns primarily although I imagine that some bits of Dublin would have been covered appeared a few times up until about September. This was being encouraged by various bodies including the anti-alcohol "Strength of Britain Movement" - occasionally deigning to remember where they were agitating by calling themselves "Strength of Britain and Ireland" - and local temperance bodies; as well as some of the publicans who could have cashed in.

That pub licences in Ireland were generally held by the pub operator, not a brewery; and were not replaceable came up in much of the Parliamentary debate, as equivalent UK closures - limited as they were - had often lead to minimal compensation to the operators.

As the months wore on, conspiracy theories begin to surface from unnamed Irish brewers that the Government were waiting until Irish brewery values fell (due to continued reduction in supply), so they could spend less buying them. Similarly there was a belief that the English brewers wanted Irish stout off the market to reduce competition and that this would occur if State control came in.

The malt restrictions lead to a significant shortage of product for Dublin's pubs by July, with some odd methods being used by certain publicans to try limit sales to regulars!

Irish Times, July 9th 1917

Despite the restrictions being based on protecting grain supplies for food - both directly for humans and for animal feed - claims were made in September that the rise in the price of milk was directly related to the reduction in the amount of spent grains from brewing/distilling which were available for dairy farmers. 

Irish Times, September 12th 1917

There had also been reports of job losses in the glass bottle works in Dublin earlier in the summer due to reduced demand - a lesson to be aware of consequences of your actions that the neo-prohibitionists of today should be aware of!

Update: 

It seems that a reduction in gravity, of an unspecified amount, occurred in April 1918

Irish Independent, April 1st 1918

More noise on the potential for buying all breweries and pubs turned up again in May 1918, with an estimated cost of £400m+ to do so for Ireland, on an estimate of 13 years of profits. This faded away quite quickly.