TOPIC:

Have been doing some digging....

In 1766 there were over 40 breweries in Dublin...
1683 - 35 ale/beer breweries in Dundalk

Ballina Chronicle 10/04/1850 there were 96 licensed brewer's in Ireland....{must have been alot of unregistered ones}..

Up in the North earliest recorded was:

1777 - James Higginson Brewery in Lisburn

Brewing was carried on fairly extensively in 1850's throughout the Norther but gave way in the end to Buy outs and distillery's.

1850's - Belfast

Lewers Brewery, Anne Street
Messrs Mackenzie Shaw & Co's Brewery, Hercules Street (now Royal Ave)
Messrs Clothworthy & Dobbin Brewery, Smithfield
Messrs Henry Scott & Co's Brewery, Cormac Street
Messrs Fordyce & Co's Brewery, Cromac Street
Mr Johnson's Brewery, King Street
Mr Henry Murney's Brewery, Bank Lane
Mr John Kane's Brewery, North Street

1867/1869 Changed name in 1883, building still in use 1901...
Belfast & Ulster Brewing Company, Sandy Row

1897 - Ulster Brewery (Thomas R Caffery) owned by Caffery family until 1950.

Outside of Belfast:

Unknown - 1 in Comber
John Johnston - 2 in Lurgan,1 in Antrim, 1 in Newtownards. Circa 1840ish still operating in Lurgan in 1910.
John Boyd & Samuel Watts - Boyd & Watts 1840 in Lurgan. Watts left an endowment in his will in 1847 which built Lurgan College in 1873. CS Lewis's father Albert was educated there..bit of trivia..

Robert Ruddock - Waringstown 1824

Breweries around the same time in Moira, Hillsborough and Magheralin.

Lisburn - William Graham
Downpatrick - (2) Saul's & Moore's
Derry - (2) Carson's & Meehan
Desertmartin/Limavady - Edward Kelly
Ballymoney - Janes Colgan
Donaghmore - Lyles
Newry - (2) William Henry & Co and Mr Arthur Russell
Enniskillen - Unknown

Hope this is of some help...hope to find out more in the Irish library in Armagh..will keep you posted!

Bloody excellent <!-- s:D --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif" alt="" title="Very Happy" /><!-- s:D --> I'll visit each of those locations and see if something was marked on the maps. I think I have a few already!

Addresses in cities are particularly useful as the maps are often so dense building use were seldom marked. I was lucky to have a 1:1056 map of Dublin which did mark most of the breweries know at the time (1838).

[quote:2p1u6jrm]Dublin 22
Dublin City (20)
Kinsaley
Stillorgan [/quote:2p1u6jrm]

This Kinsealy one is interesting to me, being my locale. Hard to imagine there was any activity out here. It was waste land til relatively recently.

It's very very small on the map. Kieron found it the other day as I hadn't bothered looking up there. It was close to a Demesne House. There's a fancy gaff built there now according to the spy in the sky via Google Earth <!-- s:D --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif" alt="" title="Very Happy" /><!-- s:D -->

Great stuff, Blacckhawk. I'm fascinated by "Clothworthy & Dobbin", which I found as Clottworthy and Dobbins elsewhere, yet the official story is that Clotworthy Dobbin was one person.

Higginson of Lisburn was the first to receive a grant from the RDS which set up a grant scheme in the 1770s to improve the quality of drink in Ireland. Maybe we should ask for a revivial of that one.

Caffrey's "Ulster Brewery" was presumably his operation in Smithfield. In 1902 he was recorded as having recently moved to his new Mountain Brewery in West Belfast where the water supply was better.

Yes I had read that Clothworthy Dobbin was one person and was a brewer who married Caffery's daughter, however the book I consulted in the Linenhall library states differently.

The book was:

The Growth of Industry in Northern Ireland, David L Armstrong 1999, Plunkett Foundation.

Incidently the Brewery in Sandy Row is still there in its entirety - a shell of course, but its behind Gilpins old furniture shop...I pass by it occasionally by car on my way into the city centre.

Apart from brewing there's a huge slice on distilleries, which is whole different ball game.


I'm interested in the breweries in Lurgan and Waringstown as they're nearby me. The Johnston brewer is part of the Johnston Linen family so there should be records on them. I picked up the Ruddock in Slaters Directory. I've identified both sites, in Lurgan it had a Brewery quarter..

The Village Inn, in Waringstown dates back to mid 1700's and still exists as a pub today. I'm hoping to find some info in the Waring papers (local Gentry) in PRONI and in the Irish Library. The village library closed a few years ago and all was moved to Armagh.