Guinness: A Family Succession

The head of the Guinness family tells the dramatic true story of how his ancestors created the largest brewery in the world.

Growing up at Farmleigh, the country house outside Dublin, Arthur Edward Guinness – Ned for short – was fascinated by the secrets and legends that surrounded the early generations of his famous family of brewers.

Against the backdrop of epic and convulsive times in Ireland and Britain, he explores the struggles and passions of his ancestors, who went from obscurity in Kildare to the pinnacle of Irish and British society.

Each generation confronted new challenges until the dramatic events when the author’s great-great-grandfather bought out his glamorous older brother and floated Guinness on the stock exchange. Overnight Edward Cecil Guinness became Ireland’s richest man.

This is a tale in which brewing genius, sibling rivalry, bounteous philanthropy, and astonishing social mobility are interwoven with historic national events, including the Act of Union, Catholic Emancipation, the Famine, the Home Rule movement, the Dublin Lockout, and ultimately Irish independence. It is the inside story, as told by Ned Guinness.