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I like this thread - such a loss, the old breweries. A friend from Canada was just on the Guinness Brewery tour and commented on what a 'triumphalist narrative' it was...all about how Guinness ate up all the little guys. My dad can remember a brewery in Drogheda producing a local ale as recently as the 1960s....wish I could try it.

Yes, I got that impression about Guinness too, and the more I plot points on a map and read little extracts, the more I realise how much was lost and homogenised.

Here's the entry I have for Drogheda:

"an extensive distillery, and three large breweries of ale and table beer, one of which, in James-street, belonging to Mr. Cairnes, produces ale which is in great repute, and is exported to England and the West Indies; attached to it is a very extensive malting establishment."

This was 1837, but it's possible it was one of those still in operation. In fact, I have mapped the one on James Street, as it was in the 1830s, but a search[/url:1w25qhww] I did for the Castlebellingham & Drogheda Brewery said it was located on Marsh Road in 1931. Marsh Road today lies where the old path of James Street used to be as far as I can tell, so it was probably the same premesis. I just checked on Google Earth, and it looks like there's a scrapyard there now. Look left out of the window of the Enterprise to Belfast as you cross the viaduct, on the south side of the Boyne, and that's where it used to be.

Update: This is slow going. I've only plotted 20 breweries out of abotut 120. <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) -->

Cairnes Ale, that's the one he mentioned. I must ask next time I'm visiting the parents where the brewery was, they'd probably have an idea.

It's a sorry state of affairs compared to England, where every other village and town has its own ale. Not just from a consumer-of-interesting-brews point of view; I really think the lost distilleries and breweries were part of our folklore. Bloody Guinness.

Cairnes Ale. Well, the price of that went up 1d for a pint on draught in 1966[/url:f8qa4hnd] <!-- s:D --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif" alt="" title="Very Happy" /><!-- s:D -->

[img:f8qa4hnd]http://www.buddelbini.de/gfx/blechschilder/416854.jpg[/img:f8qa4hnd]

So if it was Cairnes then, was that the name of the Brewery or the Beer? <!-- s:? --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_confused.gif" alt="" title="Confused" /><!-- s:? -->

Ah... hold on...

Ok, a friend in the NIAH sent me this[/url:f8qa4hnd], just remembered <!-- s:D --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif" alt="" title="Very Happy" /><!-- s:D --> So, the Cairnes your Dad had was likely made by the Castlebellingham and Drogheda Brewery, which was on Marsh Street at that time, which was actually part of James Street in the 1830's when it was just Cairne's Brewery. Actually, if you squint at that advertisement, you can make out CB & D Breweries on the top bit.

It appears that Cairnes founded a brewery in Drogheda in 1825, and the company acquired the Castlebellingham and Drogheda Breweries in 1890.

Cool that your Dad tasted it!

Thanks for whetting my appetite, Barry.

St. Bridgid's Well brewery that you linked to in the first page is/was Power's Brewery. I think it ran up to the eighties, so I should really dig around for information while it's relatively fresh.

Here is Ms. Kirby at the bottling line in the fifties, taken from the Waterford Couty Museum site:

[img:c7aqctn3]http://www.waterfordcountymuseum.org/exhibit/categories/photosandfilm/article10/image15.jpg[/img:c7aqctn3]


There are other pictures on the Waterford Image Archive, here[/url:c7aqctn3]


Best of luck with your project.

Excellent! <!-- s:D --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif" alt="" title="Very Happy" /><!-- s:D -->

And by coincidnece, my friend in the NIAH sent a similar link, with a picture of a Power's delivery truck, and is that Mr. Power himself?[/url:3w2h8lcy]

That's a nice photo archive