You know how much I love Guinness. It is my soup, my cup of tea, my mouthwash, my holy water, my milk for my cornflakes, my maple syrup for my pancakes. It is my first, my last, my deep voiced everything.
And part of what’s great about Guinness is the tradition. Brewed for hundreds of years at St James’s Gate it’s a big part of this city. You don’t get it so much any more but the smell that used to waft across town from the brewery was the most Dublin smell I can think of. Not even the Liffey on its most stinkingest days came close.
But now they’re moving. They’re going to close the brewery and move to a ‘green field’ site. Of course I can understand it, more modern buildings and equipment, better use of space, custom designed ergonomic workplaces are all the rage. It’ll probably be cheaper to run and all that. All those reasons why large industry moves from city-centres.
But Diageo, owners of Guinness, aren’t just going to make Guinness elsewhere. They’re going to sell off much of the St James’s Gate property for ‘development’. I know that’s natural too, it’s prime real estate, but I can’t help but feel really sad about it.
I know we need progress but don’t we also have to respect some of our tradition too? Take this metro thing, for example. Apparently they’re going to ruin a large chunk of St Stephen’s Green to install the terminus there. The Fusilier’s Arch will be dug up along with dozens of mature trees and a good chunk of the lake and while the arch can be put back you can’t replace the trees. Now, I know public transport needs improving in this city but fucking hell, can’t they put the terminus somewhere else where it wouldn’t case that kind of destruction?
The Green is quite unique. Maybe as Dubliners we don’t stop to appreciate it for what it is. It’s a little oasis in the centre of town. It’s a beautiful park, a place to stroll, to sit on a bench and watch people go by, to hang out in the summer time with friends or to lie on the grass with your girl/boyfriend. I’m pretty sure everyone in this city, and many people beyond, have wonderful memories of time spent in the Green. It is probably one of the very best things about Dublin and it looks like we’re taking it granted. Or allowing it to be taken for granted.
To destroy a large part of it for a metro line is just utterly wrong. Noel Dempsey, Minister for Transport, says of the upcoming disruption caused by the construction of the metro line, that you can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs. Well, Mr Dempsey, sometimes you don’t need as big an omelette as you think.
It was Arthur Guinness who paid for St Stephen’s Green to be laid out as it is today. How ironic that both of Arthur’s gaffs now face bulldozers and wrecking balls and construction works. I’ll be sad to see St James’s Gate turned into offices or apartments but it’s just a building at the end of the day.
If they wreck the Green I’ll be fucking livid.
I haven’t read this post yet I just want to be the first to say I read your interview in the Metro this morning and you came across as a total fucking geebag.
Carry on.
The smell of that cunting brewery is fucking horrific. Good riddens, says I.
I was interviewed in the Metro?
I used to work in James’ Gate. That smell of the hop clouds blowing across the yard was strange – nasty but also lovely. It’s a shame if they move. The thing is, Diageo are far from losing money, so it’s just that they want even more profit that they are willing to kill a heritage that has been continuous since 1759. Reality, I suppose. Shame, though.
And the Green?? Jesus, I thought we were supposed to have learned from the architectural sins of the 60s and 70s.
I love the smell, it reminds me of being a kid. As for the green, leave it the fuck alone, fuck up something useless and annoying like TGI Fridays instead. Fucking cultural imperialism.
I haven’t been in the green for a couple of years so fuck it. If I dont use it I couldnt care less what happens to it.
I’m gutted about Guinness moving – it really is a part of dublin’s cultural heritage. I also really like the smell of hops in the morning. Smells like….. intoxication.
Read something about the green metro work – it’s only affecting about a tenth of the green and they promise to put it all back the way it was, except for above ground vents and emergency exits. Exits which are planned to come out on one of the islands on the lake!
“a part of dublin’s cultural heritage” is, i will admit, an incredibly wanky phrase, but you know what i mean.
‘Take this metro thing, for example’… exactly.. I saw on the front of it that ‘Twenty’ tells us where the best pubs to smoke in in Dublin are or something… you total whore.
Have to agree with johnny 5 – the place is full of students practicing their broken Ingleeesh. They turned me off busses years ago. Now they’re taking over our parks……Cunts.
Johnny5, I haven’t been in the Phoenix Park in a few years. Doesn’t mean I don’t care if it’s turned into a carpark.
Johnny5 is just a contrary cunt. If you wrote a post saying you were for anal rape he’d come out and say he was against it even though he fucking loves it, the massive benny.
For the reasders who are parents -there is a fabulous children’s playground in the Green but you do have to mind your nipper if they are a bit protected in everyday life as they won’t be used to the queuing suystem used by the locals – i.e. there isn’t one!!
Sad news about St James Gate. Even as a capitalist sometimes I wonder when is enough profit enough for the multi nationals?
The Phoenix park is full of deer, stags and Emmet Staggs, I’d be all for turning it into a massive car park.
I was interviewed in the Metro?
Like you didn’t know, you dirty sell-out cunt.
So J5 is a sausage straddler. That I did not know. Thanks.
If twenty’s interviewed in metro, can we expect to read J5 in homo?
When have I ever hid the fact that I love the taste of Mickey?
Myself and London Tim had a brief fling till he was tragically killed. Accidentally. By a claw hammer. Repeatedly hitting his temple.
Well twenty a bit premature in the post there, either that or those cunts in Diagio read your post and decided not to go ahead with their dastardly plan.
This is freaky. Only last week I was sitting in Stephen’s Green with my two youngest kids, explaining to them what “that horrible smell” was.
When we got home I showed them old photo’s of me and my “girl/boyfriend”.
Time for a moratoriun on all green field building.
LEAVE Them both alone. Have we learned nothing from Wooquay
era, it could be worse, it could be Cork…
Guiness will still be brewed in St. James. Get it right ya cunt.
And who’d have thought that you’d give a shit about a few mature trees and a bit of gass, eh.
You’ll have to grow dreadlocks and chain yourself to the trees or tunnel under ground and live there for a while. I’m sure Fred the smelly cunt will give you a hand.
‘Have we learned nothing from Wooquay’ – Is he in Star Wars?
Gass? You Nazi bastard, Peadar.
I’m no tree hugger but the Green should not be touched.
‘Have we learned nothing from Wooquay’ – Is he in Star Wars?
haha
BIG mistake moving the brewery. The Guinness won’t taste the same, there’ll be something not quite right about it. I won’t drink it anymore. Pint of Diageo anyone? I don’t fucking think so.
Oh and course the Guinness marketing cunts will be reading this blog and others to test the reaction. Loads of people associate Guinness with Dublin and I mean old city centre Dublin not the Blanch or Meath. Even foddiners do.
Sure they’ll just tell us what to think anyway with some subliminal messaging and clever trickery.
CUNTS.
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2008/0509/breaking2.htm
They will still be brewing Guinness for UK and Ireland at James’ Gate. This is a significant reduction in output from that site. Looks like the start of the end. Gotta keep the smell for the tourists, is all.
But, most importantly, the healdine skimming public will read 2 lines and say ‘that’s grand, no change, guinness from james’ gate’
I’ve an idea, lets turn the Leinster House car park into a train station instead of the Green.
A much better idea.
Can they start by knocking down the bit where they brewed Breo……awful shite.
They should just burn dublin to the ground.
Shur it’s full of scumbags anyway.
Off the top of my head I can’t think of anything good about dublin anyway.
Except maybe the polish girls.
Guinness doesn’t taste the same anyway, Holemaster. About ten years ago they messed with it to try & make it more attractive to young people, fucked it up & can’t find out how to fix it. That’s why so many of their ads are about how they have quality control people touring the country checking things. You don’t see any of the ads for any type of yellow stuff saying “drink this – we guarantee it will taste the same every time,” coz they don’t have to.
Guinness used to be really heavy stuff that made you sleepy before it made you drunk. Now it’s just watery shit that gives you, well, watery shit.
I’m now officially one of the old farts moaning about the pint that I used to hate when I was a lounge boy.
in my weekend hippie days (approx 1969) manys the friday night i slept in the green , partly due to a stupor, partly due to the cost of a taxi. They could turn Leinster House into a terminus, the place is empty most of the time and the nobs could “work” from home and slag the fuck out of each other by e-mail and texts.
sorry Declan (post 31) ,I did’nt see your post until too late , I suppose the car park is bigger than the actual house
About one minute after my post I got an E-mail from Guinness setting out their plans. Fuck me, their Big Brother department is efficient.
In their e-mail, they mention the closure of Kilkenny & Dundalk & they say:
“It goes without mention that every care will be given to reduce any impact to staff”
Offhand the only way I can come up with to do that is to continue to pay them their wages.
I will say though that if closing Dundalk means getting rid of Harp it’s a great day for the environment, coz Harp gives you burps that smell like farts and farts that bring tears to your eyes.
are NTL, or whatever they call themselves now, the biggest shower of cunts on this planet. Just on to tech support, and the guy was sounding exasperated, and suddenly beep. beep. dropped call. Or the cunt hung up.
CUNTS CUNTS CUNTS CUNTS CUNTS CUNTS CUNTS
What a slap in the face to Kilkenny and Dundalk
And Mr. Tinman18, Harp Lager is the drink of the gods.
It probably is, OTM, which would explain our godless society – the gods are all lying down with a hangover that would kill a horse.
It probably is, OTM, which would explain our godless society – the gods are all lying down with a hangover that would kill a horse.
haha, very fucking true.
The worst hangovers I ever had were when I was in my early twentys, from cans of harp. And cans of fosters weren’t much better.
A crowd of us use to go on a day trip to england on the boat, every december, to stock up on drink for xmas. 24 cans of fosters for 7 or 8 pound. Head exploding stuff
“Harp Lager is the drink of the gods.”
Thath becauthe it givth you a thor head, OTM.
I’ve heard of people going to france to stock up on wine, but I never heard of people going to England for beer!?
Drinking on boats is good craic though, must do it again soon…
Is Harp still legal – I thought they dropped it years ago and only brewed it for the nordies, who cant handle change, as part of the good friday agreement.
Total rotgut, I pissed blood for a week the last time I had a night out on that muck.
i might have said it before – no one likes a nordy
Something about Harp reminds me of the seventies and all that was crap about it. Bootboys and Shawaddywaddy and crap English cars and Denim aftershave…
We should all boycott Guinness for two years when they move breweries – Tell them we’re waiting for it to settle.
TO ALL MARKETING CUNTS IN GUINNESS…
THE AD WITH THE DOT BECOMING A PINT IS NOT ONLY FUCKING CRAP AND NOTHING TO DO WITH GUINNESS, IT ALSO SHOWS HOW OUT OF TOUCH YOU ARE WITH THE BRAND AND IT IS ACTUALLY A CONCEPT THAT WAS PITCHED TO A TELECOMS CLIENT WAS AND REJECTED. THEY REHASHED IT FOR YOU STUPID CUNTS AND YOU BOUGHT IT!
ouch, holemaster, the caps, relax. does that make you a capper?
Haha, HM
Why would a telecoms company want an ad where a dot turns into a pint, anyway?
About the settle joke, not the post with the yelling
Morgor, I think it was popular in the 80s before they done away with duty free. At least it was with my family and friends. We only use to get off the boat for an hour or so on the other side. The cans were bought on the boat, dirt cheap.
Anyone else ever do this?
yeah sorry about the caps
Went to Holyhead when I was a nipper. Bought a flick-comb for some reason.
Flick combs were always shit, but promised to be cool.
The guinness ad is something to do with a trend in marketing to link a product to a mood, instead of actually mentioning anything to do with thw product.
Pretentious marketing cuntfucks.
oh the flick combs.
Remember seeing a mint or orange aero for the first time?
We were stunned, deer in headlights, three little young fellas in the shop near that museum near Belfast.
It’s called Lifestyle marketing RN. It’s already out of date. Sell the lifestyle not the product!
Bring back “Guiness is good for you”, stop running it trough two coolers, never try to make it red or clear or fizzy, leave it in James’ Gate, put the price back to what it was when i was in college, and then fuck off marketeers.
That Citroen ad bugged the crap out of me. Transformers ice fuckin’ skating. What was that about? You couldn’t actually do that with the car, so you learned fuckall from the ad.
Fuck Diageo, and fuck the fucking Metro too. What are they going to do next, repair the bullet holes in the fucking GPO? Run a motorway through the hill of Tara? Oh wait.. hang on.
And I’ll bet that the Guinness will taste different too. Green field me bollix.
Guinness is good for you?
Try telling that to my goldfish…
SG, gotta disagree there,
transformers are cool.
i’m never going to buy a citroen so those cuntfuck marketeers have failed. FAILED I SAY.
No wait SOS, sorry.
It’s Guinness is good for poo.
Yeah, that’s the shit.
The Tara Hippies were evicted yesterday.
That gave me a chuckle……
The annoying thing about the Citroen transformer ads is that their old ads had Claudia Schiffer coming down the stairs taking her clothes off.
Why fuck with a winning formula?
The ol’ trip to Holyhead on the ferry…..sigh!
Best one I can remember involved a whole bunch of us tripping on acid, stealing our beer from the shop on the boat, (Free beer tastes sweeter – FACT!), and the stupid cunt in our party, (There’s always one), being arrested in Holyhead for ripping a hand-dryer off the wall in the pub.
Happy days.
(And before anyone jumps in and starts calling me some sort of scumbag, can I just point out that we were a very well-behaved group of hallucinating beer-thieves. We didn’t bother anyone. It was early Feb., and the ferry was empty. The only animal that got hurt was the hand-dryer)
Scumbag
I just remembered, one of the people who was with me has photos of it on their facebook page. Will I find it and post a link? Spot the Monkey Balls anyone?
Yeah great memories alright.
Our trips were from Rosslare to Fishguard (probably spelt wrong) so we didn’t have to contend with the dublin, hand dryer murdering scum
wack ‘em up. mb
Look, yerman that did the hand-dryer was a mate of a mate. Never saw him before that day, and never saw him again afterwards. It helped that he missed the ferry back, for obvious reasons.
But the rest of the day was glorious. A freaky sunny warm day in February. Acid, Hash, Beer, Women, Sunshine, Fresh air, and an excuse for walking in staggers. Well, except for when we were on dry land, but we were tourists there, so walking funny was still OK.
Mind you, the locals did think it was strange that a large group of us spent 2 hours looking at the carpet shop.
Man, swirly carpets provided so much fascination back in the acid days.
I was once gently led out of the Spar for gazing at the oranges in the dimpled purple foam tray for far too long.
Heh, and if you let your focus drift away you could see the face of the Mona Lisa, albeit in a slightly tangerine hue.
Will I find it and post a link? Spot the Monkey Balls anyone?
Will anyone put a small wager on it?
i reckon that’s him, 2nd from the left, mohawk flattened from the sea air, shorter than you might think, and a little thuggish looking
but with a twinkle of wit and intelligence emanating from his saucer sized pupils
Is that not the parrot on the ginger guy’s shoulder?
MB – are you the skinny fuck in the “Waldo” outfit looking nervous
where is this picture?
In the link up above
Thath becauthe it givth you a thor head, OTM.
Ouch.
I think he’s the one with the mullet – his hair looks most like a monkey’s balls
Is the picture up already? I’ve been struggling with opening a new Picasa account, trying to get the picture on my website, and finally, through Picasa, got it onto my blog. http://tinyurl.com/5j7uxb
Don’t bet against Morgor. I had a drink with him last week, so he knows I’m the one with me arm outstretched, in the black shirt. Shit!
I’m opening Monkey’s site – I’ll be back in an hour
The photo; http://tinyurl.com/5o2ld7
I’m a bit too stoned. I’ll sort it out eventually.
retrobates (noun)
group of morally unprincipled people, predestined to damnation and garbed in the style of an earlier time
MB, I’m guessing you’re the cunt waving. The ginger bird looks quite fit, but I suppose she hasn’t been sealed in a time capsule since 1983 *sigh*
Is the 3rd guy from the right in the act of dropping his drink?
If I was any of the people in that picture I wouldn’t admit which one either.
Tell that bird on the left that Gay Byrne called and he wants his jumper from the 1987 Late Late Toy show back.
The sad lonely one at the very top looking slightly out-of-place is probably Brian
The sad lonely one at the very top
He was from Limerick. Never smiled.
That’s not a ginger bird, it’s Rory Gallagher.
I reckon it’s the 3rd from the right, coz he’s the only one who’d go binge-drinking on the mailboat and bring his own glass.
You always had class, MB
Sad lonely is Naillerz then, is he? And the guy throwing his arm up has just met the fabled left fist?
That’s not a ginger bird, it’s Rory Gallagher.
heheheh
MB it looks like you’re the one murdering Rod Stewarts “Sailing” and the rest of them are laughing cos they ditched the tabs and you’re the only one truly trippin.
Surprised you were able to take you’re eyes off any of the shirts and jumpers. Thats a criminal amount of stripes and check even for the eighties….
That’s not a ginger bird, it’s Rory Gallagher.
It’s actually Mick Hucknall.
Surprised you’re still here MB. Usually by this time on a Friday you’re bragging about being half way through your tenth can of Old Thumper’s Turdbusting Cider. Though you can’t go this week till you tell us the answer.
In case anyone missed it, I’m the one who’s just about to give Michael Stipe a fuckin’ really hard knuckler in the back. Miserable bastard. Wreckin’ me buzz, he was.
Tinman, I’m try to go easy today. Have to go to work in half an hour, so I can’t be too drunk.
I’m trying to get a few joints ready in advance, before I have to head off, but I keep lighting them up, and then having to roll more, and then lighting them up, etc.
I ripped the hand dryer and the sink off the wall in a pub in Kilkenny, even got into the newspapers the next day. It was fun.
Kilkenny People: “Dublin Dentistry Students Go On Rampage”
Only none of us were Dentistry Students
I would just like to take one word from your post to illustrate a general point.
Development.
Can we please question the meaning of this word?
It implies improvement. Like Ballymun is under development. Blanchardstown is developing quite rapidly.
I question the inherently positive tone of this trojan word.
I can understand children developing. They grow up, cope on, fall out and so on.
But isn’t building on St James Gate and St Stephen’s Green actually regression? What’s being improved here? The face of the city?
People wrote songs about these places. They won’t write songs about hotels that nobody will be able to afford to eat or stay in.
To continue two examples Ballymun and Blanchardstown have been built on. Buidlers call it development. Their wallets develop nicely. Grow, expand, bulge.
People who live there call it the same old, same old. And building on St James’ Gate will just be building more stuff. I suppose it’s their right. But I just won’t be calling it development.
Tomorrow, regenertaion and it’s flaws.
The smell is great! end of an era… and the Green plan beggars belief. Have they no imagination at all? How can there be no alternative to that?
I shed a tear.
They’ve a lease for 9,000 years on St James’ Gate! They’ve only used 249 years of it for fecks sake.
Pinkie, are you saying there’s an Anniversary ’round the corner? A 250th year?
C’mon Diagio, give us our pints for €2.50! It’s our birthright.
im a lurker from across the sea and every once in a while i check your blog when i need a good belly laugh….
i visited dublin about a year and a half ago and spent many days wanderin through the Green and sitting by the lake…….it was fall and it was beautiful there……loved my walk around the Guinness buildings…the history….saw a documentary on it all when I returned home and it all seemed pretty special to me.
Being a person from Vancouver….our oldest building isn’t more than a hundred years old and we have very few of those around…….not a huge sense of preserving history here…….I loved my trip around Ireland and walking through places so ancient with so much history that were still in use…….
it is a real shame to hear that not only are they going to develop the Guinness site all in the name of greed, but that they’ll tear up a beautiful urban paradise for the convenience of public transit…..we’ve got a ‘beautiful’ new transit system here….god awful ugly concrete structures running all over the community…elevated…just one more blight on what once was a beautiful natural setting…….can’t see the mountains for the concrete jungle being constructed around the city here
when will people come together and fight the greed of the few evil people who ruin where the majority of us have to live our lives? Those greedy developers can go and enjoy pieces of paradise anytime cause they can afford to jet off somewhere untouched, that they can’t ruin……..the rest of us poor slobs are slowly being buried in concrete…….and will moving the guinness production center ruin its flavor???? that would be sacriligious…..can’t stand the swill they serve on tap here……..it’s brewed in Montreal…there are two little irish oases that serve kegs flown in from ireland and boy………the taste is like well…..incomparable…….
What a shame that greed ruins so much for the rest of us, eh?………could you maybe chain yourself to the Guinness fence or something 20???? :-)……probably can access some wireless service around there…..and im sure your mates would happily bring round some grub and guinness to keep you going……..
Can I be the 1st to volunteer for anon’s chain-gang?
All I ask is that I have Jo handcuffed to me left arm,
and that my right arm remains free at all times.
Sign me up!