May 2021 Licence Update

Lots of entries in the file were duplicated this month, which made my procedure to check for updates rather manual and slow. Never seen that before.

One change of note

Removals:

S4428, The Bar, York Road, Dun Laoghaire - this is now a bike shop.

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.

April 2021 Licence Update

There's been a Revenue licence update

But there's absolutely nothing of interest in it.

So this post is basically worthless, but is just there to make it obvious I did check!

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

Not Pubs: Guinness Merger Timeline

I haven't seen a timeline of the many acquisitions that Guinness made in the 50s and 60s which had the end result of reducing regional variations in Irish beer and the eventual closure of every pre-craft-era brewery outside of Cork and James's Gate.

However, part of the reason for this is that its rather hard to nail down dates, so don't trust this to actually be that accurate. 

1952

Guinness of Dublin purchases Cherrys of New Ross

1954

Smithwicks of Kilkenny purchase the Great Northern Brewery of Dundalk

1955

Guinness purchases the defunct Strangmans Brewery of Waterford.

Cherrys production is moved to Strangmans, New Ross closes.

Ind Coope of the UK purchase a large, but non-controlling stake in Macardle Moore of Dundalk

1956

Cherry Cairnes Distribution Ltd formed to produce and distribute Phoenix Ale. Cairnes of Drogheda is at this stage an independent company

1957

Perrys Rathdowney bought, nominally by Cherrys

1959

Cairnes brewery closed in 1959 and sold immediately to Cherrys (and hence Guinness).  Cairnes Ltd refocused on their (Prestons) distillery

Irish Ale Breweries Ltd (IAB) is formed to merge the operations of Cherrys, Perrys and Macardle Moore. This company is 66.6% owned by Guinness and 33.3% owned by Ind Coope, reflecting their input to the merger

Smithwicks lease the Great Northern Brewery to Guinness for an initial period of five years. The newspaper reports on this imply Smithwick is not in a solid financial state following extremely poor sales in 1958.

1960

IAB now own 100% of the Macardle Moore company

1961

IAB purchase Bulmers of Clonmel, who rapidly enter cooperation with Showerings, a sister company of Ind Coope

1962

Drogheda site closed entirely

1964 

Guinness gain a controlling share of the still publicly listed Smithwicks

1965

Guinness fully take over Smithwicks

1966 

Smithwicks transferred to IAB

1967

Showerings take majority stake in Bulmers

Perrys brewery closes, after but probably not due to a strike. Production moved to Waterford.

1970

C&C takes full ownership of Bulmers.

1988

Guinness takes full ownership of IAB.

2000

Macardle Moore brewery closes.

~2004

Waterford production moves to new facility

2013

Great Northern brewery closes

Kilkenny brewery closes

Replacement Waterford brewery closes.

Of all the range of products bought in through all this process, I believe only Macardles and a heavily modified Smithwicks are still in production, at James's Gate. Phoenix survived until this century, Perrys possibly until the 1980s but other products - Great Northerns' Amber Ale, the Perrys and Cherrys products and so on faded out quite quickly.