The new Roe & Co Distillery demonstrates that large industrial buildings can be reimagined successfully with a combination of bold vision and good design, writes James Howley
Guinness became Ireland’s first global brand almost 100 years before commercial branding became a marketing phenomenon in the early 20th century. From humble beginnings in 1759 on a small site close to the late-medieval St James’s Gate, the company had grown to become the largest brewery in the world by the late 1880s. Having subsumed several city blocks on the south side of James’s Street, the brewery grew into lands on the north side of the street, linked by underground tunnels for access, services and a miniature railway network. Malthouses, grain stores, vat houses and brew houses were enlarged or replaced as the company grew to meet the ever-increasing demand for its dark creamy porter. Respected equally for their business acumen, employee welfare, scientific innovation and generous philanthropy, the Guinness family left a legacy to Dublin and Ireland that is unlikely to be equalled.
Rose Jane Leigh’s importance as an early pioneering Wexford landscape painter and her choice of studying in Antwerp placed her at the centre of the major art movements of the 19th and early 20th century, writes Mary Stratton Ryan
