December 31st, 1759: Guinness Inceptum

Randall Stephens

On December 31st, 1759, Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000-year lease for the St. James Gate Brewery in Dublin. (Since then Guinness has been a staple of new years merry makers.) The lease has survived and is held in a vault at the Guinness HQ. The four-acre site had a brewhouse, a dozen horses, a stable, and a grist mill.

Much changed in years to come. The Handbook to the City of Dublin (1908) described some of the brewery's history up to about 1900:

The brewery, which is now that of Arthur Guinness, Son, & Co., Ltd., was probably founded early in the eighteenth century, and belonged to a certain Mr. Rainsford. From him it was purchased by Mr. Arthur Guinness in 1759. Up to the year 1825 the trade was almost entirely local. From 1825, however, the trade commenced to increase in Ireland and England, and about the year 1860 commenced the foreign trade, which has gradually spread to all quarters of the world.

The stout manufactured consists of four kinds, viz.: porter, which is chiefly used in Ireland for draught; extra stout, which is the article best known to the English public, but which is also largely used in Ireland; export stout, generally exported in wood; and foreign stout, which is specially brewed and stored for the requirements of the bottlers, chiefly in Dublin, Liverpool, and London, by whom it is exported.

The amount brewed is equivalent to 101,132,001 standard gallons a year, or 2 gallons per head of population in the United Kingdom; and the supply of raw materials requires the produce of 130,900 acres of barley and 1,000 acres of hops. . . .

As regards the materials—consisting solely of malt, hops, and water—the firm use Irish barley as far as possible, but a sufficient supply of Irish barley cannot be obtained, and, consequently, a considerable quantity has to be bought in Great Britain, and a small amount is imported from foreign countries. Like most brewers, the company make a large part of the malt they use, and the remainder required is made by various firms throughout the country, on commission, or is bought in the Irish, Scotch, and English markets. The hops are obtained from Kent and America. . . .

There are three different levels in the Brewery premises, all connected by a narrow-gauge railway. . . .

The number of new casks capable of being turned out is as many as 1,500 a week, and the life of each cask about ten years. Unlike other breweries, Messrs. Guinness have not adopted cask-making machinery, except for the purpose of sawing timber. The casks are practically entirely made by hand.

The firm owns 210 drays and floats, 171 horses, and 10 steamers, all in full use; and the principal railways in Ireland have connecting lines to the brewery. The steambarges take casks from the quay which extends along the Liffey, and bring them down to the Channel steamers anchored at the North Wall, as well as to numerous vessels waiting at the mouth of the Liffey.

For more on drink, new year's revelries, frolics, merriment, teetotalism, temperance, prohibition, and more, see:

Maureen Ogle, Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer (Harvest Books, 2007)

John Kobler, Ardent Spirits: The Rise And Fall Of Prohibition (De Capo, 1993).

Michael A. Lerner, Dry Manhattan: Prohibition in New York City (Harvard University Press, 2008)

Norman H. Clark, Deliver Us from Evil: An Interpretation of American Prohibition (W. W. Norton & Company, 1976)

Iain Gately, Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol (Gotham, 2009)

Richard W. Unger, Beer in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004)

Judith M. Bennett, Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women's Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600 (Oxford University Press, 1999)

W.J. Rorabaugh, The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition (Oxford University Press, 1981)

Thomas R. Pegram, Battling Demon Rum: The Struggle for a Dry America, 1800-1933 (Ivan R. Dee, 1999)

Shameful Che Shirts

Do you own, or have you owned and worn, or know someone who owns and has worn one of those allegedly 'cool' Che Guevara t-shirts? Do you know the reason that the shirt was being worn? Does the image on the shirt actually stand for something? Do you even know who Che Guevara really was?

The 'Che Guevara' t-shirt and image has become a symbol of sorts for all that is 'counter-cultural'. It is often meant as a protest symbol for those who feel that the 'little man' is being intentionally repressed in some way by government and/or business.

Wanting to help those who are less fortunate than we are is a noble sentiment. So is wanting to effect positive changes on a government or on a society that has become repressive or abusive to it's citizens. So what exactly does that have to do with America, the most free country in the history of the world? And why on earth would this man be an appropriate symbol for such protests anyway?

Ernesto 'Che' Gevara was born in 1928 in the South American country of Argentina to parents of mixed Spanish and Irish heritage. He was brought up in a very political and intellectual environment, and became a reader of the works and teachings of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin at an early age.

In 1951 he took a year off before entering medical school in order to travel around South America on a motorcycle. During this trip he experienced first-hand the poverty in much of the land, and as a result ultimately wrote 'The Motorcycle Diaries' in regards to the trip. The book was subsequently made into a major release film in 2004.

As Guevara matured into manhood his views became more and more radical, and he eventually established the stated viewpoint that Marxism achieved through armed struggle and defended by an armed populace was the only way to rectify what he believed had become 'American imperialism' in Latin America.

Of course the true facts were that in nearly the entirety of South America, poverty was endemic, and ruling regimes in nearly every country had for centuries failed to bring about positive change due to greed for power and controlled material wealth for the privileged few.

Any American efforts to change those conditions in order to ultimately help the people by establishing democracy and capitalism was seen as interference, or 'imperialism', trying to impose our ways on others. The motives of the American government and business were always painted as self-serving when the truth was that true capitalist democratic change would indeed be good for both North and South American peoples.

The fact is that Latin American people would indeed be freer and have a better chance at sustained economic growth under truly democratic forms of government that adopted capitalist economic systems. But the power-hungry South American rulers would not let that happen, in fact would consider such a statement as paternalistically insulting, and so used and still use propaganda to paint America as a big bully and themselves as poor peasants who just want to be left alone.

It was within this atmosphere that Guevara moved his family to Mexico City in 1954, and a year later he was introduced through some Cuban exile friends to a man by the name of Fidel Castro. He was immediately swayed by Castro's militant revolutionary ideas and began serious military training in guerrilla warfare tactics.

He went with Castro to participate in the violent overthrow of the Cuban government in the late 1950's, becoming an integral leader of the rebel army. He became feared for his brutality and ruthlessness, torturing or executing anyone whom he deemed a traitor, spy, or deserter. Finally the Castro forces were able to defeat and overthrow the Cuban government and took control of Havana in January of 1959.

On taking charge, Guevara was put in charge by Castro of sorting out and punishing all political enemies and 'war criminals'. In this role, Che Guevara oversaw and even participated in the killing of hundreds of people without due process. Guevara was then later put in charge of the economy, and began to install his beloved socialist values. As always happens with such socialist systems, his programs ended in the abject failure of decreased productivity and increased dependency on the government. The Cuban economy remains in shambles to this day.

During the 1960's he became the principle voice and actor in establishing and growing the Cuban-Soviet relationship that brought Soviet ballistic missiles to the island nation just a hundred miles from the Florida coast. As history tells us, this led to the single closest experience the world would ever come to all-out nuclear war.

When the Soviets finally backed down from the Kennedy administration and withdrew the missiles, Che became enraged at what he called their betrayal, and he turned against them. He stated that had the nuclear-armed missiles been under Cuban control, he would have fired them off against the Americans. During the course of his adult life, Guevara was possibly the most vocally anti-American individual in history.

Ultimately Guevara would travel all around the world trying to educate himself on Marxist, communist, socialist, and terrorist ideals and tactics. His trips would take him to places as disparate as China, Egypt, and Ireland. He would lend his hand to Marxist revolutionary efforts in the Congo in Africa and back in South America in Bolivia. It was there that he was finally captured and executed in October of 1967.

During his lifetime, Che Guevara was closely involved with or directly responsible for violent government overthrow, torture, execution and overall destruction to humanity on a massive scale. None of his efforts were ever successful at helping any group of citizens lead a safer, happier, more secure life. In fact, his policies and actions in Cuba and other parts of the world led to death and disillusionment for millions. In the end, like Mao and Lenin and numerous others, he was a failed socialist murderer.

So this is the man whose image the 'counter-culture' has deemed as 'cool' to wear on a t-shirt. At least in South America they are beginning to get it. A recent popular t-shirt worn by youth in Argentina mocked "I have a Che tshirt and I don't know why", capturing perfectly the question for any young American who would ever display his image. Why are you wearing that shameful Che shirt?

Ireland's New Troubles

When the recent news from Ireland appeared, my friend Robert Royal asked me to comment on the physical and sexual abuse scandal swirling around the Christian Brothers and other orders. Initially, I turned it down because it was too intense and conflicted an issue for me, for I owe an immense and un-repayable debt to the brothers. I was born in Ireland, and they educated me for next to nothing and attracted me enough by their kindness and goodness that I tried out their life and rule for a while. Though I left at age twenty I had never seen the slightest indication of abuse anywhere I lived.

How many Irish Christian Brothers abused boys sexually and physically? I don’t know, but maybe something similar to the percentage of U.S. priests who were sexual abusers. That would mean about 97 percent of the brothers remained decent, dedicated men. If the rest of us suffer just reading the reports, how much more do they?

The deeper and more difficult question is: how did superiors and government auditors permit this to happen? The Irish have their own weaknesses and one of them is never to correct moral failings face-to-face. Behind the back, yes, face-to-face, no.

The Christian Brothers in the 1950s, the ones I knew, were good men. Some of them were a bit tough. But as kids we much preferred to get our “biffs” (slap on the hand, sometimes severe) rather than other disciplines, such as staying after school. This was not ideal pedagogy but it was admired by many parents, and often preferred by pupils.

It may be that therein lay the harsher seeds that corrupted some brothers. That and a “warehousing” dictated by tradition and national economic realities: class sizes were often fifty boys. Export that to the locales of the scandals, the “industrial schools” filled with sometimes difficult, though mostly lonely, abandoned boys. Add a few men who stayed there and got tougher and tougher, and gradually got satisfaction from inflicting pain, while the more normal brothers exited to ordinary schools as quickly as they could. This is pure speculative interpretation of the report on my part.

What to do?

I leave the legal consequences to the courts. And though since my days with the brothers, I have taken advanced degrees and practiced both clinical psychology and social policy, I would begin with some simple, spiritual advice. Confess, repent, and start all over again. Plus, ruthless self-examination and examination of the structures that allowed the corruption. The Church deals with corruption repeatedly, which it confronts with both firmness and kindness. St. Paul had to deal with corrupt members in the early Church. We’ve even had corrupt popes (sexually and in lots of other ways, too).

But don’t expect the Irish, especially those on a rant right now, to lead the reform of sexual attitudes and practices in Ireland. They love their license too much and will flay you, as only the Irish can, should you dare criticize them. They are silent on other forms of present serious sexual abuse of children, but refrain from calling them such: the abuse of sexually transmitted diseases, even deadly HIV; the abuse of children born out of wedlock, or much worse, aborted; the abuse of children abandoned by fathers for other women or women leaving husbands for other men. Are these serious sexual abuses? Of course they are, but not in modern Ireland.

Now how to deal with the children who were abused? Monetary compensation is certainly justified, but it can’t fix where the damage is worst, in the hearts and in the later adult sexual capacities of the abused. The likely consequences in their lives: Broken marriages, depressions, anger, abortions and out-of-wedlock births, all of which will tumble on into the future for at least a few generations to come. The only real answer is the kindness and patience they need to heal whatever damage manifests itself. There is no real recompense but the closest to it is love, care, patience, and understanding.

If God is willing and the Irish Christian Brothers are to survive, they have a stinging nettle to grasp. They will first have to establish a reputation for sanctity. Do they have the saints to lead them that way? I hope they do. Our Lord called them to follow Him and their own Calvary certainly has begun. They might start anew with a special dedication to the children and grandchildren of the abused.

But even with that they will suffer much for a long time. Those who hate the Church will see to that. It will take a special courage, humility, and grace to enter the order to serve the abused and their children. But with God nothing is impossible.

There are many to pray for in this debacle: the abused and their families, the innocent brothers, those superiors who lacked sound judgment, and the abusers who have to face a Judge (God) Who said “But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea.” May the Lord forgive them – and all the rest of us, too.

WRITTEN by Patrick Fagan at The Catholic Thing website on May 27th, 2009