55cm x 40cm Athenry Co Galway
John Jameson was originally a lawyer from Alloa in Scotland before he founded his eponymous distillery in Dublin in 1780.Prevoius to this he had made the wise move of marrying Margaret Haig (1753–1815) in 1768,one of the simple reasons being Margaret was the eldest daughter of John Haig, the famous whisky distiller in Scotland. John and Margaret had eight sons and eight daughters, a family of 16 children. Portraits of the couple by Sir Henry Raeburn are on display in the National Gallery of Ireland.
John Jameson joined the Convivial Lodge No. 202, of the Dublin Freemasons on the 24th June 1774 and in 1780, Irish whiskey distillation began at Bow Street. In 1805, he was joined by his son John Jameson II who took over the family business that year and for the next 41 years, John Jameson II built up the business before handing over to his son John Jameson the 3rd in 1851. In 1901, the Company was formally incorporated as John Jameson and Son Ltd.
Four of John Jameson’s sons followed his footsteps in distilling in Ireland, John Jameson II (1773 – 1851) at Bow Street, William and James Jameson at Marrowbone Lane in Dublin (where they partnered their Stein relations, calling their business Jameson and Stein, before settling on William Jameson & Co.). The fourth of Jameson's sons, Andrew, who had a small distillery at Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford, was the grandfather of Guglielmo Marconi, inventor of wireless telegraphy. Marconi’s mother was Annie Jameson, Andrew’s daughter.
John Jameson’s eldest son, Robert took over his father’s legal business in Alloa. The Jamesons became the most important distilling family in Ireland, despite rivalry between the Bow Street and Marrowbone Lane distilleries.
By the turn of the 19th century, it was the second largest producer in Ireland and one of the largest in the world, producing 1,000,000 gallons annually. Dublin at the time was the centre of world whiskey production. It was the second most popular spirit in the world after rum and internationally Jameson had by 1805 become the world's number one whiskey. Today, Jameson is the world's third largest single-distillery whiskey.
Historical events, for a time, set the company back. The temperance movement in Ireland had an enormous impact domestically but the two key events that affected Jameson were the Irish War of Independence and subsequent trade war with the British which denied Jameson the export markets of the Commonwealth, and shortly thereafter, the introduction of prohibition in the United States. While Scottish brands could easily slip across the Canada–US border, Jameson was excluded from its biggest market for many years.
Historical pot still at the Jameson distillery in Cork
The introduction of column stills by the Scottish blenders in the mid-19th-century enabled increased production that the Irish, still making labour-intensive single pot still whiskey, could not compete with. There was a legal enquiry somewhere in 1908 to deal with the trade definition of whiskey. The Scottish producers won within some jurisdictions, and blends became recognised in the law of that jurisdiction as whiskey. The Irish in general, and Jameson in particular, continued with the traditional pot still production process for many years.In 1966 John Jameson merged with Cork Distillers and John Powers to form the Irish Distillers Group. In 1976, the Dublin whiskey distilleries of Jameson in Bow Street and in John's Lane were closed following the opening of a New Midleton Distillery by Irish Distillers outside Cork. The Midleton Distillery now produces much of the Irish whiskey sold in Ireland under the Jameson, Midleton, Powers, Redbreast, Spot and Paddy labels. The new facility adjoins the Old Midleton Distillery, the original home of the Paddy label, which is now home to the Jameson Experience Visitor Centre and the Irish Whiskey Academy. The Jameson brand was acquired by the French drinks conglomerate Pernod Ricard in 1988, when it bought Irish Distillers. The old Jameson Distillery in Bow Street near Smithfield in Dublin now serves as a museum which offers tours and tastings. The distillery, which is historical in nature and no longer produces whiskey on site, went through a $12.6 million renovation that was concluded in March 2016, and is now a focal part of Ireland's strategy to raise the number of whiskey tourists, which stood at 600,000 in 2017.Bow Street also now has a fully functioning Maturation Warehouse within its walls since the 2016 renovation. It is here that Jameson 18 Bow Street is finished before being bottled at Cask Strength.
In 2008, The Local, an Irish pub in Minneapolis, sold 671 cases of Jameson (22 bottles a day),making it the largest server of Jameson's in the world – a title it maintained for four consecutive years.
Beautiful B&W image of legendary Tipperary captain Tony Wall lifting the Liam McCarthy after winning the 1958 All Ireland Hurling Final.
Thurles Co Tipperary 45cm x 35cm
Tony Wall was in charge of the last Tipperary championship team that took on Clare in Ennis. Thirty-three years later, he looks back on a famous career, considering all that could have gone wrong as well as all that went so well. A holder of five All-Ireland medals, Wall was one of the game’s finest ever centre-backs and the author of a still fresh book, Hurling (1965). If he wrote a sequel today, he’d advise a couple of small tweaks to the modern game.
“We have no electricity,” Tony Wall says, greeting me at the door.
This announcement makes sense of an estate filled with machines and vans and cables, men speaking urgent Polish, diggers operating as if in an underwater world. An upgrade is taking place in Raheny. The Walls are making do until six o’clock, when power is due back. Mrs Wall is in the sitting room, a gentle smiling presence. Conversation turns naturally to her experience of attending the many big occasions in which her husband hurled for Tipperary.
“We didn’t meet until after the 1958 All-Ireland final,” Wall relates. “So Betty didn’t start going to any of the matches until 1959.” He expands: “She was from a totally non GAA background in Dublin. I was this savage from down the country, bringing her away from civilisation. I was even bringing her to hurling matches…”
Mrs Wall beams. She found quite a first championship day out. Tipperary, the reigning All-Ireland champions, had Waterford in a Munster semi-final on July 12, 1959. A gale entered the Cork Athletic Grounds and stayed there. Strong wind means a tough decision. Tipperary won the toss and here was that decision.
“I was captain, same as the year before,” Wall begins. “I decided on going against the wind. I felt I had no choice because of previous experience.”
Tough decisions mean strong opinions. “I was there with Tony’s mother,” Mrs Wall remembers. “She didn’t agree with the decision to go against the wind. I said to her not to be putting the mí ádh on the team. But maybe…”
Behind this decision in 1959 lay another match in 1956. “We met Wexford in that league final,” Wall explains."We were up 15 points at half-time, having played with a strong wind. Then Wexford came back out in a frenzy and scored three or four goals in less than 10 minutes. We ended up losing by four points, on a famous day."
Wall’s call was dictated by this reversal. “Waterford just blitzed us. It was the greatest display of free-flowing hurling I ever saw. They ran through us lightening. Terry Moloney was the goalie and he couldn’t be faulted for any of the balls that passed him.”
Behind 8-2 to 0-0 at half-time, Tipperary played only for pride in the second half. They were out. The contrast was stark with the previous season when Tony Wall captained Tipperary to All-Ireland glory, won Man of the Match in the final, and was made Caltex Hurler of the Year.
“It was only because Tipperary were beaten that we could get married,” Wall reflects. “I had just been posted down to Limerick. We headed off nearly the next day, everything packed in the back of the Volkswagen, and eventually got a house there.
“Everyone really welcomed Betty into the hurling, both with the county and with the club. I think they knew our situation, that we were a bit cut off. I was the first of the younger lads to get married.”
Mrs Wall adds: “Everyone was so friendly, the whole circle. We will be 60 years married in August. If we get there…”
Tony Wall is not a dry man. His face often flashes with merriment. Jim Stapleton often acted as West Division’s selector and became worried the night before an All-Ireland final.
“I was there as an experienced player,” Wall begins. “Paddy Leahy as supremo in chief. Jim said to us: ‘So and so has a woman in his room. What are we going to do?’ Paddy was great in these situations, cool out. He just said: ‘Look, we’ll all say a decade of the Rosary, and hope for the best.’ That was that.”
The other side of romance became a factor in 1962. As Wall recounts: “Our goalkeeper, Dónal O’Brien, got married the Saturday before the All-Ireland final.”
“Eight days before it?” I say, slow on uptake.
“No, one day,” he replies. “Dónal got married on the day before the final.” He smiles at my amazement: “There weren’t that many of the players there. Myself and Betty did go. None of us were drinking, of course. But still… But we thought nothing of it at the time.”
He smiles again: “Dónal was a terrific goalkeeper. He has a remarkable record of never being beaten in a championship match while he hurled with Tipperary, during 1961 and ’62. Got married on the Saturday, won the All-Ireland on the Sunday, went to America for good on the Monday… That was it.”
A knock at the door breaks the laughter. The man of the house goes to see. The Walls’ next door neighbour has come to check: Would they like some tea?
“Our neighbours have gas for cooking,” Mrs Wall says. “So they’re not too badly fixed today.”
She starts to recall the shape of her childhood, central Dublin in the 1930s and ’40s: “There wasn’t that much electricity, back then, even in Dublin. It was mostly gaslight, which was a lovely soft light. Fade Street was gorgeous in the evening, and really quiet at the weekends, when all the traffic had gone. My father, who’d fought in the First World War, came back and eventually managed to establish a jewellery case-making business there.
“I kept one of those old lamps, and our daughter Sharon saw it and said: ‘That’s lovely. Could I have it?’ And of course we said yes, even though we could have done with it a few times afterwards. But of course we said nothing…”
Tony Wall comes back, arrangements made. There is no complacency in this man at all. Right to this day, the elderly man is fulfilment of a talented determined youth. He could sit back, cushioned by five Celtic Crosses, six NHL titles, five Railway Cups, a Minor All-Ireland in 1952 (which he captained), 11 Tipperary senior titles between 1952 and 1965. Those gongs would deafen anyone else’s modesty.
Tony Wall proved not just one of Tipperary’s greatest but one of hurling’s greatest. At centre-back, he was that good. But this man looks back on how it could all have been different. He takes me to the Cadet Mess in The Curragh during early summer of 1953. He was reading the Sunday Independent, when he noticed John D Hickey reporting that a rule change meant Tony Wall would now be eligible for Thurles Sarsfields.
Mr and Mrs Tony and Betty Wall, married on August 29, 1959 Photo courtesy of the Wall family
“Previously you had to be living in the parish to hurl with that club. I could have ended up hurling with Newbridge or somewhere else in Kildare. But the rule change meant you could declare for the club with which you’d hurled the previous season.”
Wall jumped up, got his gear, and thumbed home to play a club match. “Then I was there with Sarsfields for 50 years!”
There was a more serious consideration: “I hurled Harty Cup with Lauri McDonnell. He is a very talented hurler, but kind of got lost in Dublin. He was a year older, and fell the other side of that rule change.
“Right to the end, Lauri always wondered if he could have been a contender. I needed to be hurling club in Tipp. It wasn’t all plain sailing with Tipp in the early days, and I needed to keep my name there. I was shunted into the forwards. Without club hurling at home, I could have got lost too.”
Tony Wall has thought as deeply about hurling as anyone. The present so often patronises the past. Wall is a courteous rebuke. These switches in position, however difficult at the time, did become a resource. 1965 saw the publication of Hurling, a book still brimming with commonsense, insight and wisdom. Should this book not have found a new edition, rewritten in light of later developments?
He has retained an immersion in the game. Again, Tony Wall’s mordant side emerges: “Your name goes. You get forgotten about. And rightly so, really.”
Tony Wall is Thurles, one of hurling’s sources from the start. He states: “I was really honoured to launch Liam O Donnchú’s book. He is a brilliant historian.”
But Walls’ take on history is partly mordant: “There were old fellas, like myself now, walking around the town.”
Jim Stapleton of Thurles captained Tipperary to victory over Galway in 1887’s senior final, the inaugural contest - 71 seasons later, Tony Wall of Thurles Sarsfields repeated the feat. Mostly made of the same wood, the Tipperary wheel turned and turned."I remember, as a young fella, seeing [Jim] Stapleton around the town. He would be mentioned. A big tall stately man. But as a child you’re not tuned into these things."
The past comes later. Yet he did grow up with a keen sense of old glories. “There were plenty of older players around,” he continues. “Paddy Brolan was there. Died in the mid-1950s. I knew Tom Semple’s children. And Tommy Butler, who kept goal in 1937, was the key influence in changing me from a left hand on top grip to right hand on top.”
The sensibility that authored so incisive a monograph on the most beautiful game has not disappeared. The analytical mind is undimmed. Wall urges action in two main areas of the contemporary game: the steps rule and the nature of frees.
“I think the current hurlers are incredibly skilful,” he stresses. “The ball is travelling so far and so fast that it’s amazing the skill they have in controlling, sending it 70 yards with just a flick. There are lads scoring points from 100 yards for fun. But one of the things I really don’t like in the current game is this running with the ball in the hand. What a fella is doing that, what can an opponent do to stop him? There’s feck all he can do.”
He continues: “In our time, it was three steps with the ball. You got pulled for this rule. Sometime in the 1970s, for whatever reason, it was increased to four steps which is actually five, six, seven, eight steps… When it was three steps, you’d no need to foul, because you’d get in a tackle as the man in possession went to play the ball.”
Would he return to a three-step rule? “Yes, definitely. I’d love to see it go back to three steps, so that you have to play the ball quicker. That would go a long way towards eliminating frees and those scrummages.
“Everyone wants to pick up the ball. As soon as they pick it, they charge. Put down the head and charge. I know ‘charging’ is still in the rulebook. But referees seem to have forgotten it.”
Wall offers an intriguing contrast between codes: “When the ball is in hand, it’s more like football. What can you do when an opponent has the ball in his hand? With other lads running off his shoulder? That’s a new concept, and hurling is still figuring it out.
“If the ball is always loose… That’s the beauty of soccer. The ball is never hidden from view. It’s always in play, in soccer. There is no great skill in running with the ball. It should be anathema to a hurler. Or should be, to a stickman.”
This observer discerns the glimmer of a different future in compromise shinty games: “On these occasions, the Irish lads cannot take the ball in their hand. Look at the skill they then find… They’re back to being hurlers. Not taking the ball to hand eliminates the pulling down.”
The other bugbear is inappropriately weighted penalties: “Is a pointed free enough at times? I think, for a yellow card issue, that kind of foul, there should be a free for two points. If you have a ‘pulling down’ foul, a bit like the black card in football, you could go this way. And it would eliminate putting off lads, except for vicious fouls.
Wall elaborates: “If this kind of foul is committed by a forward in his own full-forward line, the ball should be brought out to a scoreable distance.
“What does this ‘letting it flow’ mean? All this approach means is that you don’t pull clear frees. A two-point penalty would solve a lot of it. If a referee at present actually refereed a game of hurling properly, that referee wouldn’t get any more games.”
For better or worse, this season’s hurling will continue under the current rules. Tipperary travel to Ennis tomorrow, taking on Clare. Cusack Park hosts a championship match between the two counties for the first time since 1986. The man in charge of Tipperary 33 years ago, coach and trainer? One Tony Wall.
The county experienced many lacerating championship days between 1972 and 1986. No one felt ‘The Famine’ overdid the matter as description. 1986’s impact felt like the nadir. Injury difficulties did not help. A collapsed lung suffered while kicking football meant Nicky English’s absence.
Even so, Tipperary led by seven points at half-time. Although the gap widened to nine points after the break, calamity was about to hatch. Clare outscored the visitors by 2-4 to 0-1 over the closing stages. Full-time: 1-11 to 2-10. Tipperary were gone, again. That puckish side:"Do we have to talk about 1986?"
Time has not entirely cancelled exasperation: “I was parachuted in out the blue. It was the worst decision I ever made. I should never have taken the job. Mrs Wall says: “I remember that time. All the stress and difficulties…”
Her husband elaborates: “I was too far away from it. I’d been years not involved with teams, nearly 20 years out of it. I didn’t know the Tipp scene at all. Anyway, I should have known better. A delegation landed in here to me. I suppose you could say they appealed to my Tipperary patriotism. You could also say they were desperate…
“I went down [to Thurles] the Saturday night before the Clare game, to finalise the team. There seemed to be about 25 people on the selection committee… I don’t know what they were all doing in the room. AnywayI should have had more sense.”
Natural merriment survives even these memories: “If we’d beaten Clare, after getting that big lead, and won the Munster final against Cork, God knows what would have happened… I could have been there for all time!”
Another throaty laugh: “No, we were beaten, and I was out, and I was happy as Larry to be out.
“But maybe it wasn’t all for nothing. I wrote a report afterwards, urging that a sole manager be appointed. I don’t know whether the county board actually read it, but they did appoint [Michael] ‘Babs’ Keating as sole manager, and Tipp got back to winning Munsters and All-Irelands.”
Thoughts of Tipperary and Clare tomorrow delivers a natural break. I turn off my recorder. Wall feels this day will be a different test for the Tipperary backs: “If they go well against the Clare forwards, 2019 could be a long campaign.”
He admires Éamon O’Shea’s renewed input: “I don’t know the inside story but he seems to be a tremendous coach and tactician. He came on as a sub in 1986, but I don’t ever remember us ever having a proper conversation.”
Then this man, not for the first time, surprises me. “Could I finish off with a poem?” he asks. “Of course,” I reply. “Let me just shove this yoke back on.”
He glosses his choice of an ending: “In the 1980s there was this lad writing on the Tipperary Star called ‘Tales of the Gael’. Around 1983, he went up to Dublin and met a former hurler named Tommy Treacy, who was a man of the 1920s and ’30s.
“Tommy was in a flat in Phibsboro, and this man, when he came back down to Tipp, published a poem in the Star. I cut it out, and I’m probably the only eejit left in the world who remembers it.”
Then Tony Wall throws back his head and half sings five verses, finishing with this one:
I bade goodbye and left him sitting there,The old Tipperary hurler in his upright chair.Although old and grey and full of years at lastHis thoughts are those of youthful days now past.
Delightful Jameson Whiskey advert in an aged frame depicting the massive old Jameson distillery at Bow street in the heart of Dublin near the famous Smithfield Horse Market.
The orginal distillery on this site was called the Bow Street Distillery and was established in 1780. John Jameson took full ownership (he was previously the general manager) and expanded the distillery in 1805. By 1810, the operation was officially renamed to John Jameson & Son’s Bow Street Distillery. The distillery grew to upwards of 5 acres (2 ha) in size by 1886.
At this time, it was described by many as a "city within a city". The distillery also housed a Smithy, Cooperage, saw mills, engineers, carpenters, painters and coppersmiths’ shops. Water for the distillery came from two deep wells dug underneath the site. Cellars were also dug underneath nearby streets to store maturing whiskey, while four stills and two wash stills, each holding 24,000 gallons (109,000 L), were heated by both fire and steam coils above.
Following a difficult period that included American Prohibition, Ireland’s trade war with Great Britain, and the introduction of Scotchblended whiskey, the Jameson distillery fell on hard times and decided to form the Irish Distillers Group with their previous rivals, the Cork Distilleries Company and John Power & Son in 1966. Eventually, it became one of the last distilleries in Ireland to close in 1971. The operation was then moved out of Dublin to the New Midleton Distillery.
In 2017 Jameson announced that while undergoing renovations to their Bow Street Facility in Dublin, Ireland they found a 230 year old barrel of Irish whiskey buried in the foundation of the building. The staff supposed that this was a very precious batch for it to have been hidden so well by the founder John Jameson, but upon pouring the contents, they discovered that angels had “taken more than their fair share” and left behind only a single glass of this precious whiskey.
Origins : Co Limerick
Dimensions :50cm x 60cm
e Valera was a near demagogue type politician who dominated Irish Political life from 1917 to 1973,whether as Prime Minister or President or as leader of the Opposition.Known as the Long Fella,Irish people either loved or hated him-there was simply no ambivalent feelings about this most polarising of politicians.This fine, original portrait of De Valera catches him perfectly and would make a superb addition to any Irish Pub ,both at home or abroad with a Fianna Fail or Republican bias or anyone from Clare,a county where he was always at his most popular.
Eamon de Valera, first registered as George de Valero; changed some time before 1901 to Edward de Valera;14 October 1882 – 29 August 1975) was a prominent statesman and political leader in 20th-century Ireland. His political career spanned over half a century, from 1917 to 1973; he served several terms as head of government and head of state. He also led the introduction of the Constitution of Ireland.
Prior to de Valera's political career, he was a Commandant at Boland's Mill during the 1916 Easter Rising, an Irish revolution that would eventually contribute to Irish independence. He was arrested, sentenced to death but released for a variety of reasons, including the public response to the British execution of Rising leaders. He returned to Ireland after being jailed in England and became one of the leading political figures of the War of Independence. After the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, de Valera served as the political leader of Anti-Treaty Sinn Fein until 1926, when he, along with many supporters, left the party to set up Fianna Fáil, a new political party which abandoned the policy of abstentionism from Dáil Éireann.
From there, de Valera would go on to be at the forefront of Irish politics until the turn of the 1960s. He took over as President of the Executive Councilfrom W. T. Cosgrave and later Taoiseach, with the passing of Bunreacht Na hEireann (Irish constitution) in 1937. He would serve as Taoiseach on 3 occasions; from 1937 to 1948, from 1951 to 1954 and finally from 1957 to 1959. He remains the longest serving Taoiseach by total days served in the post. He resigned in 1959 upon his election as President of Ireland. By then, he had been Leader of Fianna Fáil for 33 years, and he, along with older founding members, began to take a less prominent role relative to newer ministers such as Jack Lynch, Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney. He would serve as President from 1959 to 1973, two full terms in office.
De Valera's political beliefs evolved from militant Irish republicanism to strong social, cultural and economic conservatism.He has been characterised by a stern, unbending, devious demeanor. His roles in the Civil War have also portrayed him as a divisive figure in Irish history. Biographer Tim Pat Coogan sees his time in power as being characterised by economic and cultural stagnation, while Diarmaid Ferriter argues that the stereotype of de Valera as an austere, cold and even backward figure was largely manufactured in the 1960s and is misguided.
Origins:Co Laois
Dimensions :48cm x 35cm
We found an old Guinness Beer garden umbrella/parasol from the 1970s and decided convert into a number of unique framed pieces of retro Guinness advertising memorabilia.
Origins : Co Kerry Dimensions : 43cm x 38cm Glazed
Arthur Guinness started brewing ales in 1759 at the St James Gate Brewery,Dublin.On 31st December 1759 he signed a 9,000 year lease at £45 per annum for the unused brewery.Ten years later, on 19 May 1769, Guinness first exported his ale: he shipped six-and-a-half barrels to Great Britain before he started selling the dark beer porter in 1778. The first Guinness beers to use the term were Single Stout and Double Stout in the 1840s.Throughout the bulk of its history, Guinness produced only three variations of a single beer type: porter or single stout, double or extra and foreign stout for export. “Stout” originally referred to a beer’s strength, but eventually shifted meaning toward body and colour.Porter was also referred to as “plain”, as mentioned in the famous refrain of Flann O’Brien‘s poem “The Workman’s Friend”: “A pint of plain is your only man.”
Already one of the top-three British and Irish brewers, Guinness’s sales soared from 350,000 barrels in 1868 to 779,000 barrels in 1876.In October 1886 Guinness became a public company, and was averaging sales of 1,138,000 barrels a year. This was despite the brewery’s refusal to either advertise or offer its beer at a discount. Even though Guinness owned no public houses, the company was valued at £6 million and shares were twenty times oversubscribed, with share prices rising to a 60 per cent premium on the first day of trading.
The breweries pioneered several quality control efforts. The brewery hired the statistician William Sealy Gosset in 1899, who achieved lasting fame under the pseudonym “Student” for techniques developed for Guinness, particularly Student’s t-distribution and the even more commonly known Student’s t-test.
By 1900 the brewery was operating unparalleled welfare schemes for its 5,000 employees. By 1907 the welfare schemes were costing the brewery £40,000 a year, which was one-fifth of the total wages bill. The improvements were suggested and supervised by Sir John Lumsden. By 1914, Guinness was producing 2,652,000 barrels of beer a year, which was more than double that of its nearest competitor Bass, and was supplying more than 10 per cent of the total UK beer market. In the 1930s, Guinness became the seventh largest company in the world.
Before 1939, if a Guinness brewer wished to marry a Catholic, his resignation was requested. According to Thomas Molloy, writing in the Irish Independent, “It had no qualms about selling drink to Catholics but it did everything it could to avoid employing them until the 1960s.”
Guinness thought they brewed their last porter in 1973. In the 1970s, following declining sales, the decision was taken to make Guinness Extra Stout more “drinkable”. The gravity was subsequently reduced, and the brand was relaunched in 1981.Pale malt was used for the first time, and isomerized hop extract began to be used. In 2014, two new porters were introduced: West Indies Porter and Dublin Porter.
Guinness acquired the Distillers Company in 1986.This led to a scandal and criminal trialconcerning the artificial inflation of the Guinness share price during the takeover bid engineered by the chairman, Ernest Saunders. A subsequent £5.2 million success fee paid to an American lawyer and Guinness director, Tom Ward, was the subject of the case Guinness plc v Saunders, in which the House of Lords declared that the payment had been invalid.
In the 1980s, as the IRA’s bombing campaign spread to London and the rest of Britain, Guinness considered scrapping the Harp as its logo.
The company merged with Grand Metropolitan in 1997 to form Diageo. Due to controversy over the merger, the company was maintained as a separate entity within Diageo and has retained the rights to the product and all associated trademarks of Guinness.
The Guinness Brewery Park Royal during demolition, at its peak the largest and most productive brewery in the world.
The Guinness brewery in Park Royal, London closed in 2005. The production of all Guinness sold in the UK and Ireland was moved to St. James’s Gate Brewery, Dublin.
Guinness has also been referred to as “that black stuff”. Guinness had a fleet of ships, barges and yachts. The Irish Sunday Independent newspaper reported on 17 June 2007 that Diageo intended to close the historic St James’s Gate plant in Dublin and move to a greenfield site on the outskirts of the city.This news caused some controversy when it was announced.The following day, the Irish Daily Mail ran a follow-up story with a double page spread complete with images and a history of the plant since 1759. Initially, Diageo said that talk of a move was pure speculation but in the face of mounting speculation in the wake of the Sunday Independent article, the company confirmed that it is undertaking a “significant review of its operations”. This review was largely due to the efforts of the company’s ongoing drive to reduce the environmental impact of brewing at the St James’s Gate plant.
On 23 November 2007, an article appeared in the Evening Herald, a Dublin newspaper, stating that the Dublin City Council, in the best interests of the city of Dublin, had put forward a motion to prevent planning permission ever being granted for development of the site, thus making it very difficult for Diageo to sell off the site for residential development.
On 9 May 2008, Diageo announced that the St James’s Gate brewery will remain open and undergo renovations, but that breweries in Kilkenny and Dundalk will be closed by 2013 when a new larger brewery is opened near Dublin. The result will be a loss of roughly 250 jobs across the entire Diageo/Guinness workforce in Ireland.Two days later, the Sunday Independent again reported that Diageo chiefs had met with TánaisteMary Coughlan, the deputy leader of the Government of Ireland, about moving operations to Ireland from the UK to benefit from its lower corporation tax rates. Several UK firms have made the move in order to pay Ireland’s 12.5 per cent rate rather than the UK’s 28 per cent rate. Diageo released a statement to the London stock exchange denying the report.Despite the merger that created Diageo plc in 1997, Guinness has retained its right to the Guinness brand and associated trademarks and thus continues to trade under the traditional Guinness name despite trading under the corporation name Diageo for a brief period in 1997.
In November 2015 it was announced that Guinness are planning to make their beer suitable for consumption by vegetarians and vegans by the end of 2016 through the introduction of a new filtration process at their existing Guinness Brewery that avoids the need to use isinglass from fish bladders to filter out yeast particles.This went into effect in 2017, per the company’s FAQ webpage where they state: “Our new filtration process has removed the use of isinglass as a means of filtration and vegans can now enjoy a pint of Guinness. All Guinness Draught in keg format is brewed without using isinglass. Full distribution of bottle and can formats will be in place by the end of 2017, so until then, our advice to vegans is to consume the product from the keg format only for now.
Guinness stout is made from water, barley, roast malt extract, hops, and brewer’s yeast. A portion of the barley is roasted to give Guinness its dark colour and characteristic taste. It is pasteurisedand filtered.
Until the late 1950s Guinness was still racked into wooden casks. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Guinness ceased brewing cask-conditioned beers and developed a keg brewing system with aluminium kegs replacing the wooden casks; these were nicknamed “iron lungs”.Until 2016 the production of Guinness, as with many beers, involved the use of isinglass made from fish. Isinglass was used as a fining agent for settling out suspended matter in the vat. The isinglass was retained in the floor of the vat but it was possible that minute quantities might be carried over into the beer. Diageo announced in February 2018 that the use of isinglass in draught Guinness was to be discontinued and an alternative clarification agent would be used instead. This has made draught Guinness acceptable to vegans and vegetarians.
Arguably its biggest change to date, in 1959 Guinness began using nitrogen, which changed the fundamental texture and flavour of the Guinness of the past as nitrogen bubbles are much smaller than CO2, giving a “creamier” and “smoother” consistency over a sharper and traditional CO2 taste. This step was taken after Michael Ash – a mathematician turned brewer – discovered the mechanism to make this possible.
Nitrogen is less soluble than carbon dioxide, which allows the beer to be put under high pressure without making it fizzy. High pressure of the dissolved gas is required to enable very small bubbles to be formed by forcing the draught beer through fine holes in a plate in the tap, which causes the characteristic “surge” (the widget in cans and bottles achieves the same effect). This “widget” is a small plastic ball containing the nitrogen. The perceived smoothness of draught Guinness is due to its low level of carbon dioxide and the creaminess of the head caused by the very fine bubbles that arise from the use of nitrogen and the dispensing method described above. “Foreign Extra Stout” contains more carbon dioxide, causing a more acidic taste.
Contemporary Guinness Draught and Extra Stout are weaker than they were in the 19th century, when they had an original gravity of over 1.070. Foreign Extra Stout and Special Export Stout, with abv of 7.5% and 9% respectively, are perhaps closest to the original in character.Although Guinness may appear to be black, it is officially a very dark shade of ruby.
The most recent change in alcohol content from the Import Stout to the Extra Stout was due to a change in distribution through North American market. Consumer complaints have influenced recent distribution and bottle changes.
Studies claim that Guinness can be beneficial to the heart. Researchers found that “‘antioxidantcompounds’ in the Guinness, similar to those found in certain fruits and vegetables, are responsible for the health benefits because they slow down the deposit of harmful cholesterol on the artery walls.”Guinness ran an advertising campaign in the 1920s which stemmed from market research – when people told the company that they felt good after their pint, the slogan, created by Dorothy L. Sayers–”Guinness is Good for You”. Advertising for alcoholic drinks that implies improved physical performance or enhanced personal qualities is now prohibited in Ireland.Diageo, the company that now manufactures Guinness, says: “We never make any medical claims for our drinks.”
Origins :
Dimensions :
Its been hell for leather Guinness Hurling advert from the 90s.
Dromkeen Co Limerick
Dimensions : 52cm x 40cm Glazed
" It was not until 1994 that the GAA decided that the football championship would benefit from bringing on a title sponsor in Bank of Ireland. Although an equivalent offer had been on the table for the hurling championship, Central Council pushed the plate away.Though the name of the potential sponsor wasn’t explicitly made public, everyone knew it was Guinness. More to the point, everyone knew why Central Council wouldn’t bite.
As Mulvihill himself noted in his report to Congress, the offer was declined on the basis that “Central Council did not want an alcoholic drinks company associated with a major GAA competition”.
As it turned out, Central Council had been deadlocked on the issue and it was the casting vote of then president Peter Quinn that put the kibosh on a deal with Guinness. Mulvihill’s disappointment was far from hidden, since he saw the wider damage caused by turning up the GAA nose at Guinness’s advances.
“The unfortunate aspect of the situation,” he wrote, “is that hurling needs support on the promotion of the game much more than football.”
Though it took the point of a bayonet to make them go for it, the GAA submitted in the end and on the day after the league final in 1995 , a three-year partnership with Guinness was announced. The deal would be worth £1 million a year, with half going to the sport and half going to the competition in the shape of marketing.
That last bit was key. Guinness came up with a marketing campaign that fairly scorched across the general consciousness. Billboards screeched out slogans that feel almost corny at this remove but made a huge impact at the same time .
This man can level whole counties in one second flat.
This man can reach speeds of 100mph.
This man can break hearts at 70 yards
Its been Hell for Leather.
Of course, all the marketing in the world can only do so much. Without a story to go alongside, the Guinness campaign might be forgotten now – or worse, remembered as an overblown blast of hot air dreamed up in some modish ad agency above in Dublin.Until the Clare hurlers came along and changed everything."
Malachy Clerkin Irish Times GAA Correspondent
Arthur Guinness started brewing ales in 1759 at the St James Gate Brewery,Dublin.On 31st December 1759 he signed a 9,000 year lease at £45 per annum for the unused brewery.Ten years later, on 19 May 1769, Guinness first exported his ale: he shipped six-and-a-half barrels to Great Britain before he started selling the dark beer porter in 1778. The first Guinness beers to use the term were Single Stout and Double Stout in the 1840s.Throughout the bulk of its history, Guinness produced only three variations of a single beer type: porter or single stout, double or extra and foreign stout for export. “Stout” originally referred to a beer’s strength, but eventually shifted meaning toward body and colour.Porter was also referred to as “plain”, as mentioned in the famous refrain of Flann O’Brien‘s poem “The Workman’s Friend”: “A pint of plain is your only man.”
Already one of the top-three British and Irish brewers, Guinness’s sales soared from 350,000 barrels in 1868 to 779,000 barrels in 1876.In October 1886 Guinness became a public company, and was averaging sales of 1,138,000 barrels a year. This was despite the brewery’s refusal to either advertise or offer its beer at a discount. Even though Guinness owned no public houses, the company was valued at £6 million and shares were twenty times oversubscribed, with share prices rising to a 60 per cent premium on the first day of trading.
The breweries pioneered several quality control efforts. The brewery hired the statistician William Sealy Gosset in 1899, who achieved lasting fame under the pseudonym “Student” for techniques developed for Guinness, particularly Student’s t-distribution and the even more commonly known Student’s t-test.
By 1900 the brewery was operating unparalleled welfare schemes for its 5,000 employees. By 1907 the welfare schemes were costing the brewery £40,000 a year, which was one-fifth of the total wages bill. The improvements were suggested and supervised by Sir John Lumsden. By 1914, Guinness was producing 2,652,000 barrels of beer a year, which was more than double that of its nearest competitor Bass, and was supplying more than 10 per cent of the total UK beer market. In the 1930s, Guinness became the seventh largest company in the world.
Before 1939, if a Guinness brewer wished to marry a Catholic, his resignation was requested. According to Thomas Molloy, writing in the Irish Independent, “It had no qualms about selling drink to Catholics but it did everything it could to avoid employing them until the 1960s.”
Guinness thought they brewed their last porter in 1973. In the 1970s, following declining sales, the decision was taken to make Guinness Extra Stout more “drinkable”. The gravity was subsequently reduced, and the brand was relaunched in 1981.Pale malt was used for the first time, and isomerized hop extract began to be used. In 2014, two new porters were introduced: West Indies Porter and Dublin Porter.
Guinness acquired the Distillers Company in 1986.This led to a scandal and criminal trialconcerning the artificial inflation of the Guinness share price during the takeover bid engineered by the chairman, Ernest Saunders. A subsequent £5.2 million success fee paid to an American lawyer and Guinness director, Tom Ward, was the subject of the case Guinness plc v Saunders, in which the House of Lords declared that the payment had been invalid.
In the 1980s, as the IRA’s bombing campaign spread to London and the rest of Britain, Guinness considered scrapping the Harp as its logo.
The company merged with Grand Metropolitan in 1997 to form Diageo. Due to controversy over the merger, the company was maintained as a separate entity within Diageo and has retained the rights to the product and all associated trademarks of Guinness.
The Guinness Brewery Park Royal during demolition, at its peak the largest and most productive brewery in the world.
The Guinness brewery in Park Royal, London closed in 2005. The production of all Guinness sold in the UK and Ireland was moved to St. James’s Gate Brewery, Dublin.
Guinness has also been referred to as “that black stuff”. Guinness had a fleet of ships, barges and yachts. The Irish Sunday Independent newspaper reported on 17 June 2007 that Diageo intended to close the historic St James’s Gate plant in Dublin and move to a greenfield site on the outskirts of the city.This news caused some controversy when it was announced.The following day, the Irish Daily Mail ran a follow-up story with a double page spread complete with images and a history of the plant since 1759. Initially, Diageo said that talk of a move was pure speculation but in the face of mounting speculation in the wake of the Sunday Independent article, the company confirmed that it is undertaking a “significant review of its operations”. This review was largely due to the efforts of the company’s ongoing drive to reduce the environmental impact of brewing at the St James’s Gate plant.
On 23 November 2007, an article appeared in the Evening Herald, a Dublin newspaper, stating that the Dublin City Council, in the best interests of the city of Dublin, had put forward a motion to prevent planning permission ever being granted for development of the site, thus making it very difficult for Diageo to sell off the site for residential development.
On 9 May 2008, Diageo announced that the St James’s Gate brewery will remain open and undergo renovations, but that breweries in Kilkenny and Dundalk will be closed by 2013 when a new larger brewery is opened near Dublin. The result will be a loss of roughly 250 jobs across the entire Diageo/Guinness workforce in Ireland.Two days later, the Sunday Independent again reported that Diageo chiefs had met with TánaisteMary Coughlan, the deputy leader of the Government of Ireland, about moving operations to Ireland from the UK to benefit from its lower corporation tax rates. Several UK firms have made the move in order to pay Ireland’s 12.5 per cent rate rather than the UK’s 28 per cent rate. Diageo released a statement to the London stock exchange denying the report.Despite the merger that created Diageo plc in 1997, Guinness has retained its right to the Guinness brand and associated trademarks and thus continues to trade under the traditional Guinness name despite trading under the corporation name Diageo for a brief period in 1997.
In November 2015 it was announced that Guinness are planning to make their beer suitable for consumption by vegetarians and vegans by the end of 2016 through the introduction of a new filtration process at their existing Guinness Brewery that avoids the need to use isinglass from fish bladders to filter out yeast particles.This went into effect in 2017, per the company’s FAQ webpage where they state: “Our new filtration process has removed the use of isinglass as a means of filtration and vegans can now enjoy a pint of Guinness. All Guinness Draught in keg format is brewed without using isinglass. Full distribution of bottle and can formats will be in place by the end of 2017, so until then, our advice to vegans is to consume the product from the keg format only for now.
Guinness stout is made from water, barley, roast malt extract, hops, and brewer’s yeast. A portion of the barley is roasted to give Guinness its dark colour and characteristic taste. It is pasteurisedand filtered.
Until the late 1950s Guinness was still racked into wooden casks. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Guinness ceased brewing cask-conditioned beers and developed a keg brewing system with aluminium kegs replacing the wooden casks; these were nicknamed “iron lungs”.Until 2016 the production of Guinness, as with many beers, involved the use of isinglass made from fish. Isinglass was used as a fining agent for settling out suspended matter in the vat. The isinglass was retained in the floor of the vat but it was possible that minute quantities might be carried over into the beer. Diageo announced in February 2018 that the use of isinglass in draught Guinness was to be discontinued and an alternative clarification agent would be used instead. This has made draught Guinness acceptable to vegans and vegetarians.
Arguably its biggest change to date, in 1959 Guinness began using nitrogen, which changed the fundamental texture and flavour of the Guinness of the past as nitrogen bubbles are much smaller than CO2, giving a “creamier” and “smoother” consistency over a sharper and traditional CO2 taste. This step was taken after Michael Ash – a mathematician turned brewer – discovered the mechanism to make this possible.
Nitrogen is less soluble than carbon dioxide, which allows the beer to be put under high pressure without making it fizzy. High pressure of the dissolved gas is required to enable very small bubbles to be formed by forcing the draught beer through fine holes in a plate in the tap, which causes the characteristic “surge” (the widget in cans and bottles achieves the same effect). This “widget” is a small plastic ball containing the nitrogen. The perceived smoothness of draught Guinness is due to its low level of carbon dioxide and the creaminess of the head caused by the very fine bubbles that arise from the use of nitrogen and the dispensing method described above. “Foreign Extra Stout” contains more carbon dioxide, causing a more acidic taste.
Contemporary Guinness Draught and Extra Stout are weaker than they were in the 19th century, when they had an original gravity of over 1.070. Foreign Extra Stout and Special Export Stout, with abv of 7.5% and 9% respectively, are perhaps closest to the original in character.Although Guinness may appear to be black, it is officially a very dark shade of ruby.
The most recent change in alcohol content from the Import Stout to the Extra Stout was due to a change in distribution through North American market. Consumer complaints have influenced recent distribution and bottle changes.
Studies claim that Guinness can be beneficial to the heart. Researchers found that “‘antioxidantcompounds’ in the Guinness, similar to those found in certain fruits and vegetables, are responsible for the health benefits because they slow down the deposit of harmful cholesterol on the artery walls.”Guinness ran an advertising campaign in the 1920s which stemmed from market research – when people told the company that they felt good after their pint, the slogan, created by Dorothy L. Sayers–”Guinness is Good for You”. Advertising for alcoholic drinks that implies improved physical performance or enhanced personal qualities is now prohibited in Ireland.Diageo, the company that now manufactures Guinness, says: “We never make any medical claims for our drinks.”
Origins : Dublin
Dimensions : 43cm x 35cm
Unique hand crafted ceramic of James Connolly from 1975.
20cm x 13cm Scarriff Co Clare
James Connolly was a revolutionary socialist, a trade union leader and a political theorist. His execution by firing squad after the Easter Rising, supported by a chair because of his wounds, significantly contributed to the mood of bitterness in Ireland.
Connolly was born in Edinburgh, the son of Irish parents. Like Larkin, he was brought up in poverty, largely self-educated, attracted into politics by the labour movement and drawn through it to Ireland. In 1896, he was invited to become paid organiser of the Dublin Socialist Society. By the time he emigrated to the US in 1903 his ideas had developed, fusing together both his socialist and nationalist principles. When he returned to Ireland in 1910 he found the Irish political environment more receptive. Connolly rose to prominence during the Dublin Lockout in 1913 and in October 1914, after Larkin’s departure for America, became General Secretary of the Irish Transport and General Workers` Union and commander of the Irish Citizen Army (ICA). Liberty Hall was the headquarters of both and this became his power base. He welded the ICA into a potent force and potential weapon for his own use. Though small, just 220 members in 1912, it was well disciplined and trained and ideologically united; its goal was an independent Irish republic.
With the outbreak of war, Connolly became increasingly committed to fomenting an insurrection against British rule in Ireland; he had gradually changed from labour organiser and agitator into military commandant and theorist. In mid-January 1916 he reached agreement with the Irish Republican Brotherhood Military Council to co-operate in an insurrection the following Easter. He joined the Council, and on the day before the Rising its members appointed him vice-president of the Irish Republic and Commandant-General, Dublin Division, Irish Army.
Connolly proved himself to be the most effective and inspirational of the rebel leaders during the insurrection. On Easter Monday, 24th April, he led the Headquarters Battalion from Liberty Hall to the General Post Office and commanded military operations there throughout the week – supervising the construction of defences, determining and adjusting strategy, summoning reinforcements and deciding on the disposition of his forces. That only nine volunteers in the post office garrison died during the fighting is testimony to his talents. He himself took constant risks with his own safety but even after being severely wounded on 27th April, he remained, as Patrick Pearse said, "still the guiding brain of our resistance".
At noon on Saturday 29th April, Connolly supported the majority view of the leaders that they should surrender as he ‘could not bear to see his brave boys burnt to death’. His expectation was that the Rising`s organisers would be shot and the rest set free. Under military escort, Connolly was carried to the Red Cross hospital at Dublin Castle where hours later he signed Pearse`s surrender order on behalf of the Irish Citizen Army. He was court-martialled there, propped up in his bed, on 9th May. At his trial he read a brief hand-written statement which stated that: ‘The cause of Irish freedom is safe … as long as … Irishmen are ready to die endeavouring to win [it]’. His execution took place at Kilmainham Gaol after dawn on 12th May – he was the last of the rebel leaders to face the firing squad.
You'll Never Beat the Irish -Republic of Ireland Autographed Squad Photo circa 1994 en route to the World Cup in USA.
Artane Dublin 70cm x 56cm
Back in 1986, with Northern Ireland celebrating a second consecutive World Cup qualification, the Republic was the poor relative, in debt, in decline, and with a lot of empty seats and coffers to fill.
Step forward Jack Charlton, the nation’s first-ever foreign manager. As Niall Quinn says, “he was big, he was blunt, he was English.”
Despite that, Charlton knew he would be accepted very quickly by his new congregation after walking through Dublin’s main thoroughfare in O’Connell Street.
“The Irish people are very close in character to the Geordie,” Charlton said. “They are very welcoming to strangers, they’re not false, they like a pint and a laugh and a party.”
So began a decade long celebration that lifted the Boys in Green to the top eight teams in the world for one brief but beautiful moment.
Charlton had beaten late entrant Bob Paisley, a multiple trophy winner, to the FAI hot seat, and his introduction to the gathered press was a million miles away from the carefully staged managed productions of the modern day.
In fact, it almost turned into an impromptu David Haye and Tony Bellew pre-match fight when Charlton challenged hardened journalist and ex-international Eamon Dunphy’s line of questioning. That relationship turned increasingly sour as time went by.
‘No nice stuff’
Shamrock midfielder Pat Byrne recounted to the Irish Times just how unwavering the new manager was about tactics: “He made it very clear that first time on the training ground that ‘we are not going to have any nice stuff here.
“It’s going to be very straight; we’re going to play it this way: we’re going to get the ball, we’re going to put it over the full-backs’ head and we’re going to have runners in behind.
“We’re going to close everything up and we’re going to turn the whole backline; as soon as they’re turned, we’re on our way.”
This was the blueprint – or greenprint – of the Irish national team for the next decade.
Former players like Johnny Giles thought this indicated a lack of trust in the ability of players. Charlton saw it as pragmatic. His idea was to keep information and instruction simple.
There were some aesthetes in the team, most notably an ageing Liam Brady, who were initially unnerved and eventually sidelined by this move away from playing from the back.
Players such as Brady would send over the free-kicks and corner-kicks that were central to the game plan, while Mick McCarthy could launch a good old long throw into the mixer. Keeper Packie Bonner was told “to kick every ball long, as high as you can into their half of the park.”
Find Another Irishman
To make the game work, the new manager needed to find quality players outside of the League of Ireland.
“You want me to compete with the best in the World, I’ve got to have the f*****g best in the world. And it’s not here in Ireland that I can find it, I’ve got to go to England to find it.”
Players were recruited through notices that were put up around grounds. John Aldridge and Ray Houghton were both gathered from Oxford United.
Big Jack’s “Find Another Irishman” policy via the Granny rule was worked to the Mrs Brown bone.
After a 1-0 defeat to Wales in his first match in charge, Charlton got to work on qualifying for the 1988 European Championship in West Germany.
The Republic finished top of their group, ahead of a talented Belgium side who had reached the semi-finals of the ‘86 World Cup. This was Ireland’s first ever appearance at a major championship finals.
Beating England
City and town streets were deserted for matches as the tournament got off to the best possible start against England. Nobody does spontaneous parties like the Irish.
The winning goal pretty much summed up Eire’s raison d’etre, as described by UEFA: “Kevin Moran took a free-kick and hit it long, Ireland’s main mode of attack.
“The ball fell to Tony Galvin, who hooked in a cross that Kenny Sansom inadvertently ballooned up in the air. John Aldridge headed it to Liverpool FC club-mate Ray Houghton, whose own header looped beyond Peter Shilton.”
It was like the international version of Liverpool v Wimbledon in the FA Cup final that year.
While England staggered to defeat against the USSR and Holland, the Irish matched both teams stride for stride. Houghton described the 1-1 draw against the Soviets as “one of the best performances I’ve ever been involved in with Jack’s teams”.
The Netherlands eventually broke Irish hearts with what Charlton described as “the greatest fluke of the year” when Wim Kieft headed in a bizarre 82nd-minute winner that was almost Irish in its conception.
Italia 90
Even so, Ireland had arrived with a bang. And if Euro 88 was the start of the journey, Italia 90 was the zenith.
The qualification group to make it to their first World Cup was straightforward enough, but their defensive resilience proved decisive as they conceded in only one match – the loss against Spain – while John Aldridge and self-confessed “fake Irishman” Tony Cascarino did the business at the other end.
As the team landed in Sardinia, drawn yet again against England for the first match, Larry Mullen from U2 had produced a cracker of a team song called: “Put ‘em Under Pressure”, that topped the Irish charts for 13 weeks.
It wasn’t exactly “World in Motion”, but it was a great soundtrack to the joyous march of Jackie’s army. Their modus operandi was to “inflict our game on other people”.
Ultimately, the music and their fans were a damn sight more appealing than their football. But who cared if they could stay around a bit longer for another Guinness?
The England match was a bit of a non-event on the pitch, as Kevin Sheedy cancelled out Gary Lineker’s early goal, and it was followed by another flat performance in a goalless draw against Egypt.
Dunphy was openly critical of Charlton’s long-ball tactics, suggesting that “the style of the play didn’t reflect the quality of the players in the side.”
That simmering feud continued as the manager refused to take questions from the writer whom he later described as a “bitter little man”.
A 1-1 draw with the Dutch meant both teams had identical records as all three of Holland, England and Ireland progressed, with the Irish benefiting from the drawing of lots to qualify as group runners-up
After three drab stalemates, the party only truly began in Genoa against Romania in the last 16 – after another goalless game, Bonner saved Romania’s fifth penalty, leaving David O’Leary to take the decisive kick.
RTE commentator George Hamilton uttered the most important seven words Irish fans remember: “A nation holds its breath… We’re there!”
How ironic that the hero was O’Leary, another more football-minded defender that was often overlooked by Charlton.
O’Leary recalled: “There were about 20,000 brilliant Irish supporters behind the goal. They were so still and the eruption of green afterwards when the ball hit the net was absolutely amazing. It’s a fantastic memory.”
Meeting the Pope
Things were about to get more surreal as Charlton had promised an audience with the Pope should his team make it to the last eight.
Perhaps Pope John Paul II, a goalkeeper in his youth, sought out Bonner about goal-line interventions rather than divine ones, but Ireland’s quarter-final against Italy in Rome was not tinged with any luck for the Celtic keeper, who could only parry Roberto Donadoni’s shot into the path of Golden Boot winner Toto Schillaci. It was a gallant defeat.
Skipper Andy Townsend recalled: “As we are all gathering up our bags, Jack turned round to Packie and said: ‘By the way, the f****** Pope would have saved that!’
Ireland’s propensity to draw a large proportion of games (30 out of 93 under Charlton) cost them dearly in the 1992 Euro qualifying group as only eight teams could qualify for Sweden.
They finished behind Graham Taylor’s stodgy England team, despite drawing home and away against them.
However, the Republic were reaching a new peak, with a young Roy Keane and Denis Irwin introduced to the team.
“The worst thing about missing out on Euro 92 was that Denmark won it. It should have been Ireland.” recalled a frustrated manager.
USA 94
In his final match as manager of Northern Ireland, Billy Bingham had the chance to prevent the South reaching the Stateside World Cup in ‘94.
Bingham inflamed the occasion by branding their players “a bunch of mercenaries”, declaring his intention to “stuff the Republic”.
So hostile was the atmosphere that Pompey midfielder Alan McLoughlin later declared that the “safest place to be was on the pitch”.
The match finished 1-1 which was enough for the Green Army to secure a front row seat for Diana Ross’s open-goal miss. Charlton confronted Bingham immediately after the match and said: “Up yours too” – although he later apologised.
In the USA, the party started early in New York as Italy were beaten in the Big Apple by a Houghton strike.
Patrick Barclay summed it up best in The Observer: “Ireland’s blanket defence rendered vain all the creative endeavours of Roberto Baggio, who adorned this marvellous occasion but was not allowed to influence it because for 90 mins Jack Charlton’s sweat-soaked soldiers stayed about as close as ranks can get.”
Unfortunately, Ireland’s performances tailed off dramatically for the remainder of the tournament.
Such draining tactics were hard to administer in the humidity of Orlando, and the manager was banned from the touchline for venting his fury at officials over the lack of water for his troops against Mexico.
After squeezing through the group following a goalless draw with Norway, the Green bus ran out of fuel against the Dutch in the last 16.
Beginning of the end
The mid-90s were the beginning of the end for JC’s JCB formation.
The Irish finished second in Euro 96 qualifying, just pipping Northern Ireland for a play-off place.
Lying in wait, yet again, were their old adversaries, Holland. While the Dutch were winning their last three qualifiers without conceding a goal, the Republic had stumbled through their last five matches, drawing in Liechtenstein and losing 3-1 home and away to Austria and 3-0 to group winners Portugal
Anfield was the “neutral” venue for the play-off and the stadium was the backdrop to a pretty decent cover version of Fields of Athenry that evening.
Unfortunately, injuries to crucial players like Roy Keane and Steve Staunton stymied the tactics as Charlton packed the midfield with defenders. It didn’t work.
The Dutch were comfortable 2-0 winners as a teenage Patrick Kluivert exposed the limitations of the press and punt tactics. The headline in the Irish Times was Ninety Minutes Chasing Shadows.
“In my heart of hearts, I knew I’d wrung as much as I could out of the squad I’d got – that some of my older players had given me all they had to give,” Charlton said.
Big Jack’s signing-off got the send-off it deserved with rousing renditions of You’ll Never Walk Alone.
Ultimately, Charlton, who was made an honorary Irishman, had good memories and very few regrets: “I can’t remember losing with Ireland. All I can recall are victories, celebrations and getting the right results against all the odds.”
It is sometimes opined in retrospect that the Republic could have done better with the quality of players at their disposal. They only won one of nine World Cup matches, scoring just four goals.
After USA’ 94, Dunphy said: “The minority who know their football well enough to distinguish between fact and fantasy have long since decided that even though the show is great, the football of the Charlton era has been, too often, lousy.”
But would liberation have taken away the organisational pragmatism that was central to the Green Wall being breached just 41 times in 93 games? After all, this was a team that also beat Brazil at home and Germany in Hannover.
Niall Quinn said: “We were happy as we were – beautiful, skilled losers.”
Big Jack made them coarse but clinical winners on the pitch and a lot happier off it.
11 of Jack Charlton’s best quotes: ‘Can we go now please? I’d like a beer’
34cm x 54cm
Spectacular print of the Co Kildare Hunt in full cry including a stylish lady riding side saddle.
The Kildare Hunt Club was formally born in 1804, with Sir Fenton Aylmer of Donadea as its first master. Hunting had flourished in the 17th century but became a more formal entity by 1726 when the Ponsonbys of Bishopscourt established what might well constitute the original ‘Kildare Hunt’. The Conollys of Castletown House and the Kennedy’s of Johnstown both had a private pack of foxhounds by the 1760s.There were also packs at Castlemartin, Ballynure, Castlewarden, Donadea and Straffan. The Leinster Harriers were established at Kilmorony House near Athy in 1812 while the Naas Harriers were kennelled at Jigginstown from 1920 until 2000. Another keen hunting family were the Burghs of Oldtown, Naas; TJ and Ulick Burgh both took part in the cavalry charge at the battle of Tel el Kebir in Egypt in 1882.In the early 19th century, hunt members simply ‘improvised some modest little meeting at which gentlemen and farmers alike could indulge their taste for riding over a typical bit of Kildare country’. And yet the sport transcended religion and class to such an extent that, in the diocese of Kildare and Leighlin, it was said that hunting amongst the Catholic clergy was widespread.
Framed copies of both the An Post sponsored Gaelic Football & Hurling Teams of the Millennium in the form of commemorative postage stamps of each of the nominees.
Dimensions: 36cm x 29cm Glazed
"The An Post-GAA Team of the Millennium was unveiled at Croke Park yesterday. The selection which serves as the first 15 inductions into the GAA's new Hall of Fame has also been marked by an issue of 15 commemorative stamps by An Post. The stamps will be available in a variety of combinations from today. Next year, a similar exercise will take place to honour 15 hurlers.
There was some comment on the absence of Dublin's Brian Mullins and Jack O'Shea from Kerry but it seemed generally appreciated that there were only two centrefield slots on the team and someone had to lose out. Tommy Murphy, the Boy Wonder of the 1930s Laois team which won three Leinster titles in a row, who was included ahead of Mullins and O'Shea had the added distinction of being the only player honoured who had not won an All-Ireland medal.
Not surprisingly, Kerry - who top the All-Ireland roll of honour with 31 titles - lead the way on the team with six selections. Despite being clearly second behind Kerry with 22 All-Irelands, Dublin provide only one player, Kevin Heffernan at left corner forward. Galway and Mayo have two players each with one from Cavan, Down, Meath and Laois making up the balance.
Joe McDonagh, President of the GAA, described the project as a reflection "on the history and evolution of our association, its games and its central characters, the players who have left such giant footprints in the sands that is the chronicle of the GAA".
The Hall of Fame which is inaugurated by this team will be represented all through Croke Park, according the GAA director general Liam Mulvihill. He said that the Hall will be added to with a small number of inductions on an annual basis.
"We decided that this team would be the initial members of the Hall of Fame and we were planning to honour those selected around the main areas of the concourse of the re-developed stadium, in the bottom tier and the upper tier. We wanted those ordinary tiers where ordinary supporters gather as the most appropriate place to honour those players.
"The inductions will be in very small numbers, we're probably talking about two a year. Two footballers, two hurlers or one footballer and one hurler. It has to be made very, very special."
Paddy Downey, formerly GAA correspondent of The Irish Times, was one of the adjudicators and confirmed the widespread feeling that the task of selecting such a team wasn't an enviable one.
"It's nearly impossible because there's so many players, particularly in what you might call the big, central positions: midfield, centre-back, full back. Already people are saying to me: `why isn't Brian Mullins on, why isn't Paddy Kennedy of Kerry, Jack O'Shea - above all at the present time' and so on.
"We also had the problem of not picking a half-century team of people we had seen ourselves. You could also argue how could we pick someone we hadn't seen - Dick Fitzgerald, apparently one of the greatest players of all time, Paul Russell of Kerry, Jack Higgins of Kildare, from the earlier part of the century.
"I was conscious that we could have gone further back and taken the word of our predecessors in journalism who had praised these players and done so in print. Inevitably it came to be more a team of the second half of the century than the early years."
Martin O'Connell of Meath was the only player of what might roughly be called contemporary times - one whose career was largely after the selection of the 1984 Centenary Team - to earn a place.
"I was surprised," he said. "I didn't even know until I came up here. I arrived a bit late and Micheal O Muircheartaigh was just reading out the names. I was absolutely delighted."
Framed photo montage of Guinness & pub scenes from the 1950s plus 2 original Guinness bottle labels from Richard Farrell Youghal & Thomas O'Reilly Sandymount.
Dimensions : 35cmx 45cm Dublin
Arthur Guinness started brewing ales in 1759 at the St James Gate Brewery,Dublin.On 31st December 1759 he signed a 9,000 year lease at £45 per annum for the unused brewery.Ten years later, on 19 May 1769, Guinness first exported his ale: he shipped six-and-a-half barrels to Great Britain before he started selling the dark beer porter in 1778. The first Guinness beers to use the term were Single Stout and Double Stout in the 1840s.Throughout the bulk of its history, Guinness produced only three variations of a single beer type: porter or single stout, double or extra and foreign stout for export. “Stout” originally referred to a beer’s strength, but eventually shifted meaning toward body and colour.Porter was also referred to as “plain”, as mentioned in the famous refrain of Flann O’Brien‘s poem “The Workman’s Friend”: “A pint of plain is your only man.”
Already one of the top-three British and Irish brewers, Guinness’s sales soared from 350,000 barrels in 1868 to 779,000 barrels in 1876.In October 1886 Guinness became a public company, and was averaging sales of 1,138,000 barrels a year. This was despite the brewery’s refusal to either advertise or offer its beer at a discount. Even though Guinness owned no public houses, the company was valued at £6 million and shares were twenty times oversubscribed, with share prices rising to a 60 per cent premium on the first day of trading.
The breweries pioneered several quality control efforts. The brewery hired the statistician William Sealy Gosset in 1899, who achieved lasting fame under the pseudonym “Student” for techniques developed for Guinness, particularly Student’s t-distribution and the even more commonly known Student’s t-test.
By 1900 the brewery was operating unparalleled welfare schemes for its 5,000 employees. By 1907 the welfare schemes were costing the brewery £40,000 a year, which was one-fifth of the total wages bill. The improvements were suggested and supervised by Sir John Lumsden. By 1914, Guinness was producing 2,652,000 barrels of beer a year, which was more than double that of its nearest competitor Bass, and was supplying more than 10 per cent of the total UK beer market. In the 1930s, Guinness became the seventh largest company in the world.
Before 1939, if a Guinness brewer wished to marry a Catholic, his resignation was requested. According to Thomas Molloy, writing in the Irish Independent, “It had no qualms about selling drink to Catholics but it did everything it could to avoid employing them until the 1960s.”
Guinness thought they brewed their last porter in 1973. In the 1970s, following declining sales, the decision was taken to make Guinness Extra Stout more “drinkable”. The gravity was subsequently reduced, and the brand was relaunched in 1981.Pale malt was used for the first time, and isomerized hop extract began to be used. In 2014, two new porters were introduced: West Indies Porter and Dublin Porter.
Guinness acquired the Distillers Company in 1986.This led to a scandal and criminal trialconcerning the artificial inflation of the Guinness share price during the takeover bid engineered by the chairman, Ernest Saunders. A subsequent £5.2 million success fee paid to an American lawyer and Guinness director, Tom Ward, was the subject of the case Guinness plc v Saunders, in which the House of Lords declared that the payment had been invalid.
In the 1980s, as the IRA’s bombing campaign spread to London and the rest of Britain, Guinness considered scrapping the Harp as its logo.
The company merged with Grand Metropolitan in 1997 to form Diageo. Due to controversy over the merger, the company was maintained as a separate entity within Diageo and has retained the rights to the product and all associated trademarks of Guinness.
The Guinness Brewery Park Royal during demolition, at its peak the largest and most productive brewery in the world.
The Guinness brewery in Park Royal, London closed in 2005. The production of all Guinness sold in the UK and Ireland was moved to St. James’s Gate Brewery, Dublin.
Guinness has also been referred to as “that black stuff”. Guinness had a fleet of ships, barges and yachts. The Irish Sunday Independent newspaper reported on 17 June 2007 that Diageo intended to close the historic St James’s Gate plant in Dublin and move to a greenfield site on the outskirts of the city.This news caused some controversy when it was announced.The following day, the Irish Daily Mail ran a follow-up story with a double page spread complete with images and a history of the plant since 1759. Initially, Diageo said that talk of a move was pure speculation but in the face of mounting speculation in the wake of the Sunday Independent article, the company confirmed that it is undertaking a “significant review of its operations”. This review was largely due to the efforts of the company’s ongoing drive to reduce the environmental impact of brewing at the St James’s Gate plant.
On 23 November 2007, an article appeared in the Evening Herald, a Dublin newspaper, stating that the Dublin City Council, in the best interests of the city of Dublin, had put forward a motion to prevent planning permission ever being granted for development of the site, thus making it very difficult for Diageo to sell off the site for residential development.
On 9 May 2008, Diageo announced that the St James’s Gate brewery will remain open and undergo renovations, but that breweries in Kilkenny and Dundalk will be closed by 2013 when a new larger brewery is opened near Dublin. The result will be a loss of roughly 250 jobs across the entire Diageo/Guinness workforce in Ireland.Two days later, the Sunday Independent again reported that Diageo chiefs had met with TánaisteMary Coughlan, the deputy leader of the Government of Ireland, about moving operations to Ireland from the UK to benefit from its lower corporation tax rates. Several UK firms have made the move in order to pay Ireland’s 12.5 per cent rate rather than the UK’s 28 per cent rate. Diageo released a statement to the London stock exchange denying the report.Despite the merger that created Diageo plc in 1997, Guinness has retained its right to the Guinness brand and associated trademarks and thus continues to trade under the traditional Guinness name despite trading under the corporation name Diageo for a brief period in 1997.
In November 2015 it was announced that Guinness are planning to make their beer suitable for consumption by vegetarians and vegans by the end of 2016 through the introduction of a new filtration process at their existing Guinness Brewery that avoids the need to use isinglass from fish bladders to filter out yeast particles.This went into effect in 2017, per the company’s FAQ webpage where they state: “Our new filtration process has removed the use of isinglass as a means of filtration and vegans can now enjoy a pint of Guinness. All Guinness Draught in keg format is brewed without using isinglass. Full distribution of bottle and can formats will be in place by the end of 2017, so until then, our advice to vegans is to consume the product from the keg format only for now.
Guinness stout is made from water, barley, roast malt extract, hops, and brewer’s yeast. A portion of the barley is roasted to give Guinness its dark colour and characteristic taste. It is pasteurisedand filtered.
Until the late 1950s Guinness was still racked into wooden casks. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Guinness ceased brewing cask-conditioned beers and developed a keg brewing system with aluminium kegs replacing the wooden casks; these were nicknamed “iron lungs”.Until 2016 the production of Guinness, as with many beers, involved the use of isinglass made from fish. Isinglass was used as a fining agent for settling out suspended matter in the vat. The isinglass was retained in the floor of the vat but it was possible that minute quantities might be carried over into the beer. Diageo announced in February 2018 that the use of isinglass in draught Guinness was to be discontinued and an alternative clarification agent would be used instead. This has made draught Guinness acceptable to vegans and vegetarians.
Arguably its biggest change to date, in 1959 Guinness began using nitrogen, which changed the fundamental texture and flavour of the Guinness of the past as nitrogen bubbles are much smaller than CO2, giving a “creamier” and “smoother” consistency over a sharper and traditional CO2 taste. This step was taken after Michael Ash – a mathematician turned brewer – discovered the mechanism to make this possible.
Nitrogen is less soluble than carbon dioxide, which allows the beer to be put under high pressure without making it fizzy. High pressure of the dissolved gas is required to enable very small bubbles to be formed by forcing the draught beer through fine holes in a plate in the tap, which causes the characteristic “surge” (the widget in cans and bottles achieves the same effect). This “widget” is a small plastic ball containing the nitrogen. The perceived smoothness of draught Guinness is due to its low level of carbon dioxide and the creaminess of the head caused by the very fine bubbles that arise from the use of nitrogen and the dispensing method described above. “Foreign Extra Stout” contains more carbon dioxide, causing a more acidic taste.
Contemporary Guinness Draught and Extra Stout are weaker than they were in the 19th century, when they had an original gravity of over 1.070. Foreign Extra Stout and Special Export Stout, with abv of 7.5% and 9% respectively, are perhaps closest to the original in character.Although Guinness may appear to be black, it is officially a very dark shade of ruby.
The most recent change in alcohol content from the Import Stout to the Extra Stout was due to a change in distribution through North American market. Consumer complaints have influenced recent distribution and bottle changes.
Studies claim that Guinness can be beneficial to the heart. Researchers found that “‘antioxidantcompounds’ in the Guinness, similar to those found in certain fruits and vegetables, are responsible for the health benefits because they slow down the deposit of harmful cholesterol on the artery walls.”Guinness ran an advertising campaign in the 1920s which stemmed from market research – when people told the company that they felt good after their pint, the slogan, created by Dorothy L. Sayers–”Guinness is Good for You”. Advertising for alcoholic drinks that implies improved physical performance or enhanced personal qualities is now prohibited in Ireland.Diageo, the company that now manufactures Guinness, says: “We never make any medical claims for our drinks.”
Origins : Dublin
Dimensions : 43cm x 35cm