It Happens Between Stops

by Mattie Lennon

  The ball came high from midfield, he broke it down but it ran away towards the corner flag. The youngster went after it and lobbed it into the square; the full forward thundered in, a mass of bodies finished in the back of the net. A green flag went up, the left corner back stayed down. A sub came on, he could hardly go off now; he had better give it a few minutes until the team settled down. They got a point back but conceded another. Then Gallagher went off and the final replacement came on, it was now too late to lie down. The ball came down in his corner, he reacted too slowly, the youngster shimmied to his left and punched the ball over the bar before he got in his tackle.

  Silently he listened to the referee’s warning, a goal down and only minutes left. His opponent moved out following the kick out, he followed him grimly. The ball went up to the opponents square; the goal keeper grabbed it and drove it up the field. His opponent hesitated as it swung in the breeze. Pat slid past him went high in the air the ball went through his hands and cannoned of his chest. His impetus took him on to it, as it came off the ground it landed in his clutching hands. His run had taken him over the half way line, he steadied himself and drove it high for the posts, it fell short Big Jim rose and flicked it home. It was level scores.

  The referee looked at his watch. The ball was driven out. A free in. Big Jim slotted it over the bar. The match was over. Pat Kennedy felt good. He thought there was at least another season in him.

  UNCLE ARTHUR’S BREW

  Declan Gowran

  The stand-off was becoming more physical and the abuse uglier. After the first provocative exchanges, the shoving and jostling then started as the burly Dublin Corporation navvies tried to enforce the City Sheriff’s Order. Against this pressure the line of brewery workers tried to hold firm, their arms interlocked in the form of a chain, better to absorb the thrust of their protagonists. The brewery men groaned from the strain of holding their line:

  “Quick! Run and summon the Master.” The charge-hand shouted desperately to a terrified apprentice shoring-up the end of the line: “Run! Run! Before we break!”

  On hearing the choked report of this surprise action of the Authorities from the gasping apprentice, the Master charged out of his office, across the yard, straight through the throng, and stormed into the eye of the fracas.

  “Leave hold! Leave off!” He was yelling in fury. His head was pulsating, his face turning red with rage as he tried to stop the confrontation; and still the issue was contested.

  The Master grabbed a discarded pick-axe, and brandishing it above his head, he swung the improvised weapon in great radial arcs, scattering the belligerents in his wake regardless of their allegiance.

  “Desist at once!” he bellowed with menace directed at the city council’s navvies: “Desist now! This is my water, my river water God given and free. I have swam in it, fished it, and will drown in it if necessary to preserve my right to draw from it. I shall never relinquish that right, neither to you or your superiors. Go tell them that! Arthur Guinness fulfils his promises and orders it so. Now Go!”

  The navvies slinked back in retreat chastened by the defiance of the man who had challenged them across the disputed watercourse of the River Liffey like a colossus. The City Sheriff, who was nominally in charge of the enforcement of the right of the City Council to reclaim the watercourse, said afterwards in a statement of ‘saving face’ that the city’s right to the watercourse had been asserted; but it would have been wrong to proceed under the circumstances.

  In order to forestall any such further action by Dublin Corporation Arthur Guinness filed a Bill against it with Injunctions for the ground, pipes and Liffey Watercourse supplying the St. James’s Gate Brewery. In 1779 Dublin Corporation did indeed instigate a further foray to recover the watercourse only to discover to their consternation that a wall had been erected to enclose it and protect it from just such incursions.

  The watercourse dispute dragged on, until in May 1785 in order: ‘To put an end to suit’, Dublin Corporation invited Arthur Guinness to become ‘A tenant to ground for watercourse and the pipes at Echlin’s Lane of 2 inch bore thereto under lease with Rainsford at £10 per annum rent.’ Arthur agreed and with both sides’ honour intact the watercourse dispute was finally resolved.

  The Watercourse Dispute is one of the few recorded incidents in the life of Arthur Guinness the founder of the famous St. James’s Gate Brewery in Dublin. Arthur was born in Celbridge, County Kildare in 1725 to Richard Guinness and his wife Elizabeth, who was a daughter of the prosperous Reid family of North Kildare. Richard had worked as a groomsman for the family before falling in love with Elizabeth. Constrained by their respective positions and the social inhibitions of the time, they decided to elope and marry. Richard subsequently found employment as an agent and rent collector for Dr. Arthur Price, the Anglican Archbishop of Cashel who had his seat and estate in Celbridge.

  Arthur had three brothers: Richard who was to follow him into the brewery trade, Benjamin who was to become a merchant in Dublin and Samuel, known as the Goldbeater. He also had two sisters: Frances, who was to marry into the Darley family of developers in Dublin, and Elizabeth who was to marry Benjamin Clare who was related to Richard’s second wife, Elizabeth Clare who owned the White Hart Inn in Leixlip, County Kildare.

  There is some dispute as to the origins of the family. One theory suggests that Richard of Celbridge was the grandson of an adventurer called Gennys from the town of the same name in Cornwall who accompanied Cromwell to Ireland in 1649 as a foot-soldier and remained after the Cromwellian Settlement to carve out a living. Far more acceptable to Arthur Guinness and his family was the claim that he was descended from the noble Magennis Clan of County Down. The use of the Magennis Coats of Arms during his own lifetime would have lent an exalted status to a mere merchant family and established an ancient Anglo-Irish pedigree which would have suited the politics and social class requirements of the day.

  Richard of Celbridge proved to be a diligent and honest employee and was apparently well liked by Dr. Price and his tenants. Arthur also acted as an agent for Dr. Price, and the first recorded example of the signature that was to become famous on every label of Guinness was the signing of a lease for meadowland near Oldtown, County Kildare in 1756.

  In accordance with the culinary practices of the time it would have been accepted that the larger households would have a small brewery attached to provide beer and ales for the kitchen and table as these refreshments were more potable than the drinking water generally then available which would have often been contaminated particularly in larger towns and cities. It would appear that Richard had become interested in brewing as a hobby and had become quite proficient in producing a passable brand of homemade beer. The basic ingredients of beer and ale were roasted barley which was malted or soaked with water to provide wort which was then dried and flaked; hops to give it the bittersweet flavour and yeast to ferment it with alcohol. The mature liquid was then strained into kegs. Leftovers like barm went to the baker, and spent hops used as animal feed.

  Richard involved Arthur in the brewing process at the bishopric and soon developed a talent for the art. But whereas Richard was content to confine himself to home-brewing; Arthur saw through the froth of his first brewing efforts to detect a business opportunity and a lifetime career in the making. It must have been during this initial trial brewing period that he formulated his successful business model based on the finest of raw materials like Kildare Barley and English Hops, the correct quantity of ingredients especially of yeast, the time-weighted brewing of the mixture, and the most stringent quality control such as the purity of the water to fix the taste of the product.

  Richard’s first wife died in 1742 and he subsequently courted and married Elizabeth Clare, a widow and proprietor of the White Hart Inn in Leixlip. Attached to the inn was a small brew-house and it was here that young Arthur set-up shop as an independent brewer, translating his own brewing theories into practice, as it were, on a slightly larger scale th
an Dr. Price’s kitchen brewery; and developing his own vision for the future.

  Dr. Arthur Price died in 1752 and left £100 in his Will to both Richard and Arthur. With this money to back him, Arthur persuaded his father to purchase the lease of a small brewery beside the iron and linen mills along the river Liffey at Leixlip. It was a bona fide brewery ready equipped with the minimum of refurbishment costs and an endless water supply from the Liffey. Arthur moved in on September 25th 1756. His younger brother Richard was taken on as an apprentice while Arthur would be the Master Brewer. As manager of a brewery Arthur would now have to research and source raw materials, oversee the brewages and the marketing and sales of the products, the efficient running of the plant, and transportation. North Kildare was more populated then than in more recent times and large towns such as Maynooth and Lucan were readily accessible; but Arthur’s life plan was to be still more ambitious.

  Arthur joined the Corporation of Dublin Brewers in April of 1759: the recognised Guild of St. Andrew’s for his trade in order to establish his credentials in a city that was largely governed through its 25 trade guilds represented on the city council. Thanks to his forthright character and no nonsense approach and negotiating skills, Arthur became a Warden of the Corporation of Dublin Brewers in 1763, and then Governor in 1767.

  Arthur had resolved to acquire a suitable brewery in Dublin, then a city with Capital status boasting its own Parliament housed in the pillared Parliament House opposite Trinity College designed by Sir Edward Lovett Pearce in 1729. The great Georgian developments of Luke Gardiner and his son Lord Mountjoy, and of the Fitzwilliam and Merrion Estates were transforming the fetid medieval old town into a metropolis of wide streets and elegant squares of parkland and red-bricked townhouses. The great mansions of the nobility followed led by the earl of Kildare who constructed his home on Molesworth Fields; and the exceptional Public Buildings like the Royal Exchange on Cork Hill designed by Thomas Cooley in 1769. These edifices opened up new vistas of splendour to enthral the ever growing milieu of gentry gazing across the changing Dublin skyline. These would be Arthur’s market as each household always had a barrel of beer on tap in the cellar: and the bigger the household, the bigger the barrel it required. Arthur would also have to consider supplying inns and hostelries and taverns against the competition of another one hundred odd breweries. These breweries would offer doucers or inducements like introductory gifts to prospective customers, free barrels, credit allowances and ‘pay-up by’ rebates. In addition the majority of taverns were known euphemistically as ‘Open Houses’ under the sole control of certain breweries.

  Arthur had a number of advantages going for him and these were his expertise in the trade, the quality of his product, his single-minded business energy, his contacts and a determined streak of ruthlessness in obtaining his objectives. One of his earliest coups was to be appointed Official Brewer to the Viceroy and grandees in Dublin Castle in 1779 which effectively was giving his product the Royal Seal of approval, and which inevitably lead to his Knighthood for charitable works coupled with his services to the Crown.

  On his excursions into Dublin seeking suitable new premises for the expansion of the business, Arthur identified an old disused brewery at the junction of Thomas Street and James’s Street in the Liberties of Dublin that was available for immediate lease from the Rainsford family. On an acre of neglected ground stood a spacious dwelling with outhouses and stables for twelve horses, a fish pond, a mill, two malt-houses and a copper brewing vessel that was stained green from a surfeit of damp years of idleness. Despite its decay, Arthur saw its potential and was motivated to make an offer for the brewery. Using a shrewd stratagem Arthur negotiated the lease of St. James’s Gate at a rental of £45 per annum for a period of 9,000 years, signed the lease on September 24th 1759 and moved in on December 31st 1759.

  Arthur concentrated on the brewing of ales and beer in the early years. It was only from April, 1799 that the brewery was to concentrate on brewing its brand of Plain Porter, and the stronger, world famous: ‘Extra Stout Porter’. The term porter was taken from the porters of the London markets who had taken to relish this highly hopped dark brown beer that was stronger than table beer, but weaker than traditional ale. Porter had been brewed by Harewood in Shoreditch in the East End of London in 1722 and first sold and served in the ‘Blue Last’ pub in Shoreditch. It was said that the drink was accidentally brewed because Harewood had burnt the roasting barley and had sold the resultant dark liquid cheaply to the porters of the London markets. The thirsty porters couldn’t get enough of it, ensuring its success and popularity. In the fullness of time this accident became attributed to Richard and Arthur, while other connoisseurs insisted that certain vermin were added to the fermentation process to give ‘Uncle Arthur’s Brew’ more ‘body’; while still others insisted that Arthur’s secret recipe for Extra Stout Porter had been stolen from an enclosed Order of Monks who had produced the stronger beer to improve the muscular productivity of the workers labouring in their dairy and farm and scriptorium!. The ‘Harp’ trademark was adopted in the 1860’s.

  The London porter was brewed with soft water, not hard and grew in flavour with keeping in the cask. Porter kept longer than beers or ales so that the stock could be stored longer and provide for a longer shelf life for sale with less wastage from staleness. Although porter was originally called ‘stale’ it became ‘stout’ as it improved with age. With the introduction of Patent Brown Malt Arthur brewed his ‘Triple X Stout’ recipe. Patent Brown Malt was a more highly coloured malt that gave the porter a more caramelized consistency and produced a saving on extract because it required smaller portions for the recipe. The stronger the porter the dearer it was and Guinness Extra Stout sold at (4d) 4 pence a quart which was dear enough considering the average industrial wages of the day varied between 5 and 10 shillings. St. James’s Gate competed with London imports such as ‘Pharoah’, ‘Huff-Cup’ and ‘Knockdown’ which latter brand name might hint at the knock-out potency of the brew if taken to excess.

  In time porter became a tonic given to expectant mothers to build up the iron in the blood. It was also offered to blood donors to revive their energy in those misguided and naive days before the introduction of more severe drinking laws. Stout of course is used to fortify foods such as puddings, cakes and the ubiquitous stews and pies.

  The ‘Pint of Plain’ became an immortal cultural icon with the introduction of The Working Man’s Friend by Flann O’Brien:

  ‘When things go wrong and will not come right though you do the best you can

  When life is dark as the hour of night: a Pint of Plain is your only man!’

  Mention must be made of the ‘Large Bottle’: the Guinness of choice for the hard working and hard drinking Irish Navvy, docker, and farm labourer. Thus the famous ritual was instituted of the double pour of the porter at 45 degrees angle into the glass, causing the gush of the bubbling brown brew with the frothy settling time of three minutes as the creamy head was held aloft by the action of the brewing gases before the pint was passed through the lips.

  When Arthur first began brewing at St. James’s Gate the excise duties on beers and ales was a perennial bugbear for the Corporation of Dublin Brewers. As well as high local tariffs on beers brewed for the home market there were higher export taxes of beers exported to England in contrast to a lower rate of taxes on beers exported from England into Ireland. These excise anomalies had become so skewed that at one time Arthur had threatened to close St. James’s Gate and set up a new operation in North Wales; and he had even gone so far as to travel there to reconnoitre suitable sites, but was unable to find one. In his position as Governor of the Corporation of Brewers he petitioned Parliament for a fairer deal for his profession; and as he was related by marriage to Henry Grattan, he was able to elicit his support to further the interests of brewers and industry in general.

  In June, 1761 Arthur married Olivia Whitmore, the heiress and Ward of William Lunell of a well-to-do Dublin
merchant family. She brought with her to the brewery lodge a dowry of £1,000 and the charitable outlook of a progressive woman of her times. Arthur himself had supported altruistic organisations since his earlier years as a Knot of the Servants of St. Patrick in Kildare. He supported the Dean and Chapter of St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the pupils of St. Patrick’s Choir and Grammar School of 1432 with a bounty. He also served as treasurer and governor of the Meath Hospital. He founded the first Sunday School in Ireland in 1786. Arthur and Olivia had ten surviving children and it was his namesake Arthur the Second who was to succeed his father on his death in January, 1803 at the age of 78. Arthur was buried near his mother in Oughterard Cemetery in County Kildare.

  .

  THE GOOD AULD DAYS

  Mark Bolger

  ‘Next stop!’ the driver announced, ‘Dublin. Please place your ticket chip against the seats in front of you.’

  The doors dilated shut. John missed the good auld days of diesel fumes and traffic jams. He’d been griping against change in the company for one hundred and twenty years now. Even before his first rejuvenation, he realised with a grin.

  Engaging gear, he rose from the French plasti-crete.

  His latest bugbear with the company was they were trying to introduce a twenty-six hour week. He was safe behind the protection of his pre Twenty-Eighteen contract, but what about the new drivers coming in and being forced to work the medieval hours now demanded.

  He was entitled to the quarterly re-juve treatments. Head therapy for his family was expected. What with the job making him come home cranky, adding the pressures life in the late twenty-second century forced on everyone. Qualifying for four continent free travels for him and his family was down to service time in.