House of Guinness, out Sept. 25 on Netflix, hops into the family drama brewing behind Ireland’s iconic beer brand.
The eight-part series follows the four adult children of the Guinness brewery’s patriarch Benjamin Guinness—once the wealthiest man in Ireland—as they navigate running the popular brewery and the family’s properties after his death in 1868 amid clashes between Catholics and Protestants. The depiction of the Guinnesses is based on stories passed down in the family as recalled by Ivana Lowell, an executive producer.
Here’s a look at the real history that inspired House of Guinness.
Where Guinness fits in Catholic-Protestant tensions
At Benjamin Guinness’s funeral in the show, one of the eulogizers says, “If ever there was anyone who could bring the Catholic and Protestants of this great city together, it was this man.” The line is ironic because it comes after a montage of people throwing bottles at his coffin. Throughout the series, Irish Catholics are fired up and participating in protests that accuse the Protestant Guinness family of cozying up to the British. Some of the family’s philanthropy is geared towards easing the tensions between Catholics and Protestants in the city.
In the 1860s, Ireland was occupied by the predominantly Protestant English and the country’s Catholic population faced discrimination. The Guinnesses were Protestant, and Guinness was brewed in Ireland, but bottled in England.
“Benjamin, the patriarch, was a Tory MP for Dublin, and he was consistently voting in favor of Ireland being part of Britain,” says Steven Knight, creator of House of Guinness and Peaky Blinders.
The Guinness family was “very much pro-England,” says Bill Yenne, author of Guinness: The 250 Year Quest for the Perfect Pint. “The rich commercial families had more contact with England than they did with much of Ireland.” Lots of Guinness family members lived in England and had titles in British aristocracy, and some even became Protestant clergymen. “They very much were loyal to the crown.”
What to know about Fenians
In the show, Edward Cecil Guinness (Louis Partridge), the third son of the deceased Benjamin Guinness—who took over running the brewery after his father’s death—tries to establish an open line of communication with Ellen Cochrane (Niamh McCormack), who represents the Fenians, a revolutionary movement in Ireland that grew out of the potato famine in the 1840s and 1850s. It was a precursor to the IRA, the terrorist organization known for planting bombs in public places in Ireland and England in the 20th century.
According to Knight, Edward’s gesture was part of a general effort to extend an olive branch to appease potential adversaries.
“The Fenians may have had designs on doing nasty things to the Guinness family,” Yenne says. Indeed, Knight says the Guinness family claims that the Guinness brewery feared attacks by Fenians and arsonists before Benjamin Guinness’s death.
Fenians “want to cast off the British altogether,” says Christopher Klein, author of a book on Fenians When the Irish Invaded Canada: The Incredible True Story of the Civil War Veterans Who Fought for Ireland’s Freedom.
The plot point in which Ellen’s rebel brother is arrested and sent to America is inspired by the Cuba Five, a group of Irish rebels released from British prisons and sent to the U.S. According to Knight, the British government wanted the American government to do more to crack down on the Fenian movement in New York City and Boston, but American pols didn’t want to lose Catholic votes. The Brits released some Fenian prisoners from Dublin and allowed them to go to America to foster goodwill with Catholic voters in the hopes that the American government would crack down on the Irish trying to invade Canada.
Yes, you read that right. Irish people did try to invade Canada in the 1860s and 1870s—five times. “The whole idea there was that Canada is a British territory, and they would try to, in essence, ransom Canada for Ireland independence, which, not surprisingly, did not happen,” Klein says.
The immigrants who were part of the Irish diaspora in the U.S. would raise money, purchase guns, send them over to Ireland to prepare for launching a revolution.
“There are these Irish exiles who fought in the American Civil War and sort of viewed it as a training ground for the revolution that they really want to launch in Ireland,” says Klein. “So in 1865 and 1866, you actually have some veterans of the American Civil War who are trying to sneak back into Ireland to try to be part of the next revolution there.”
As for Edward’s fling with Cochrane in the show, there isn’t any proof that that happened, but Knight sees it as a logical next step to maximize entertainment value. As he puts it, “It’s a fiction that I’ve invented, but no one can prove he didn’t.”
The show ends with a cliffhanger, an attempt on Edward’s brother Arthur (Anthony Boyle)’s life, as he’s running for Parliament, but viewers don’t see whether Arthur lives or dies. The real Arthur would end up living, representing the brewery’s interests in Parliament for a year, and he died in 1915. Knight says the show is less about Guinness’s path to success—because it already is massively popular during the period in which the show is set—and more about how the family navigates the drama around them: “The audience all knows that Guinness did become incredibly successful. We all know that because Guinness is still there now. So it’s not a cliffhanger in terms of, are they going to prevail. It’s a cliffhanger in terms of, how do they survive?”
The post The True Story Behind House of Guinness appeared first on TIME.
