Guinness’s St James’s Gate Brewery is synonymous with the city and people of Dublin. From the company’s modest beginnings in 1759 to its heyday in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and its continued strength into the twenty-first century, Guinness has had an enormous influence over the city’s economic, social and cultural life.
In The Goodness of Guinness, which features numerous illustrations, Tony Corcoran examines the magnitude of the brewery’s operation and the working lives of the thousands of Dubliners who depended on Guinness for their livelihood. Guinness’s extremely progressive treatment of its workers – in terms of health, training and housing – is discussed in detail, as is the Guinness family’s philanthropy and compassion towards the less-well-off residents of the city. Above all, the book is full of Guinness lore, humour and insight: it is a window into one of Dublin’s most important and best-loved institutions.
Tony Corcoran
Tony Corcoran's grandparents joined Guinness in 1891, and his father started working for the company in 1924. Tony himself spent thirty-eight years in Guinness, working in the highly specialised brewing area. He later took on a growing responsibility for staff training, becoming brewing training manager. On retiring from the company in 1996, he set out to mine the company's extensive archive in order to chart the history of the James's Gate Brewery and, in particular, Guinness's progressive approach to staff welfare.