Guinness family

For other uses, see Guinness (disambiguation).

Guinness family
Arms granted to The Rev. Hosea Guinness in 1814[1]
Current regionUnited Kingdom
Current headEdward Guinness, 4th Earl of Iveagh
TitlesEarl of Iveagh
Viscount Elveden
Baron Moyne
Baron Ardilaun
Guinness baronets
MottoSpes Mea In Deo ("My hope is in God")
Estate(s)

The Guinness family is an extensive Anglo-Irish family known for its achievements in brewing, banking, politics, and religious ministry. The brewing branch is particularly well known among the general public for producing the dry stout beer Guinness, as founded by Arthur Guinness in 1759.[2] Beginning in the 18th century, they became a prominent part of what is known in Ireland as the Protestant Ascendancy;[3] in the late 19th century they were elevated into the British nobility.[4]

The "banking line" Guinness's all descend from Arthur's brother Samuel (1727–1795) who set up as a goldbeater in Dublin in 1750; his son Richard (1755–1830), a Dublin barrister; and Richard's son Robert Rundell Guinness who founded Guinness Mahon in 1836.[5]

The current head of the family is the Earl of Iveagh. Another prominent branch, descended from the 1st Earl of Iveagh, is headed by Lord Moyne.

Origins

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The Guinness family refers to the descendants of Richard Guinness (born c. 1690), an Anglo-Irish Protestant from Celbridge who married Elizabeth Read (1698–1742), the daughter of a farmer from Oughterard, County Kildare.[4] Details of Richard's life and family background are scarce, with many legends and rumours, and as a result tracing ancestry beyond him has proven difficult. On the subject Lord Moyne, writing in The Times in 1959, wrote:

The origins of our family are hidden in the mists of a not very remote antiquity. The first Guinness of whom there is an undoubted record is Richard Guinness of Celbridge, county Kildare, who was born about 1690 and was living in Leixlip in 1766. Efforts to trace the origin of the family beyond him have met with no success; conjecture, supported by inconclusive pieces of evidence, have led principally in the direction of the Magennis family of county Down and of the Gennys family of Cornwall.[6]

Magennis of Iveagh

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The traditional and longstanding view was that the Guinness's were descended from the Clan Magennis of Iveagh, prominent Gaelic nobility from County Down. The family were Irish Catholics and noted Jacobites who, led by Bryan Magennis, 5th Viscount Iveagh, fought at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. Despite the differences of religion and surname spelling, members of the Guinness family have long claimed Magennis ancestry. Sir Bernard Burke corroborated this descent in his various genealogical works.[7] The Rev. Hosea Guinness was granted an altered version of their coat of arms;[8] and Edward Cecil Guinness, head of the brewing line, chose for his title "Earl of Iveagh" (alluding to descent from the Viscounts Iveagh of the 1623 creation).[4] A romantic and fanciful rumour existed that Richard Guinness was the illegitimate son of Bryan Magennis before he fled to the Continent.[9]

In 2007 Patrick Guinness authored Arthur's Round: The Life and Times of Brewing Legend Arthur Guinness in which he largely disproves the apparent pretence of descent from Magennis of Iveagh. Instead, based on DNA testing conducted by Trinity College Dublin, Patrick Guinness asserts descent from the Macartans, a lesser County Down clan under Magennis of Iveagh. He further asserts that the ancestors of the Guinness family were not of the chiefly family but in fact mere followers and tenants. According to him, the name derives from the townland of Giuness (Gaelic: Gion Ais) which in 1640 is recorded as property of Phelim Macartan.[10][11] Such work is not conclusive proof as historians continue to argue the matters.[9]

Ginnis/Gennys of Cornwall

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There exists also a lesser-known, but equally fanciful view that the Guinnesses were a branch of the family of Ginnis (also spelled Gennys/Guinnis) of Tralee.[12][13] The family were minor landed gentry of Cornish extraction, who came to Ireland from Cornwall during the Cromwellian conquest of the 1650s. The origin of the name in this case would be from St Gennys, near Padstow, with Guinness representing a corruption of the original surname and family branch in Kildare/Dublin. Parallel and contrasting Magennis, one rumour was that Richard Guinness was the illegitimate son of an English (i.e. Williamite) soldier stranded in Ireland after the Boyne, and an Irish girl.[9] According to the same sort of rumours, Richard was a groom who eloped with Elizabeth Read.[9]

Henry Seymour Guinness, of the banking line who was also the first to suggest "Owen Guinnis" as the father of Richard, was the main proponent of Cornish origins.[4][14] Patrick Guinness dismisses the Cornwall origin on the basis that Henry Guinness's great-uncle was an MP for Barnstaple and bankrupted, and therefore bias and unreliable.[10] He does however concur with the theory that Owen Guinnis was the father of Richard. It is worth noting that the descendants of the banking line (which includes descendants of the 1st Earl of Iveagh) certainly have some Cornish ancestry through their descent from the Jago family of Dublin, who certainly originated from Cornwall.[7]

Prominent members

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ Fox-Davies, Arthur Charles (1899). Armorial Families: A Directory of Some Gentlemen of Coat-armour, Showing which Arms in Use at the Moment are Borne by Legal Authority. T.C. & E.C. Jack. p. 363. Retrieved 2 August 2017.
  2. ^ "Herald" article, 2009
  3. ^ Essay by 2nd Lord Moyne, The Times 20 November 1959; (Online text in Eugenics Review, April 1960)
  4. ^ a b c d Mullally, Frederic (1981). The Silver Salver: The Story of the Guinness Family. Unknown Publisher. ISBN 978-0-246-11271-2.
  5. ^ Mosley, Charles, ed. (2003). Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knighthood (107 ed.). Burke's Peerage & Gentry. pp. 2066–2067. ISBN 0-9711966-2-1.
  6. ^ Essay by 2nd Lord Moyne, The Times 20 November 1959; (Online text in Eugenics Review, April 1960)
  7. ^ a b Burke's Peeraege
  8. ^ Per saltire gules and azure a lion rampant Or on a chief ermine, a dexter hand couped at the wrist of the first, include the Red Hand of Ulster. His motto was Spes mea in Deo [My hope in God]
  9. ^ a b c d Mansfield, Stephen (2009). The Search for God and Guinness: A Biography of the Beer that Changed the World. Thomas Nelson. pp. 42–43. ISBN 978-1-4185-8067-4.
  10. ^ a b Guinness, Patrick (2008). Arthur's Round: The Life and Times of Brewing Legend Arthur Guinness. Peter Owen. ISBN 978-0-7206-1296-7.
  11. ^ "Guinness origins begin to settle". BBC News. 15 December 2007.
  12. ^ O'Laughlin, Michael C. (1994). Families of Co. Kerry, Ireland. Irish Roots Cafe. pp. 65–66. ISBN 978-0-940134-36-2.
  13. ^ Amery, John S. (1917). Devon & Cornwall Notes & Queries. J.G. Commin. p. 76.
  14. ^ The Guinness Family ... Compiled by H.S. Guinness ... and B. Guinness. Arranged by M. Galwey. London. 1953.
  15. ^ a b c d e f Box, Joan Fisher (1978). R. A. Fisher: The Life of a Scientist. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-09300-9.
  16. ^ a b c d Box, Joan Fisher (1978). R. A. Fisher: The Life of a Scientist. John Wiley & Sons. p. Plate 11. ISBN 0-471-09300-9.

Further reading

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  • Martelli, G. Man of his Time (London 1957)
  • Lynch P. & Vaizey J. Guinness's Brewery in the Irish Economy, 1759–1876 (Cambridge 1960)
  • Mullally, Frederic. The Silver Salver: The Story of the Guinness Family (Granada, 1981)
  • Aalen, F. H. A. The Iveagh Trust The first hundred years 1890–1990 (Dublin 1990)
  • Guinness, J. Requiem for a Family Business (Macmillan 1997)
  • S. Dennison and O.MacDonagh, Guinness 1886–1939 From incorporation to the Second World War (Cork University Press 1998)
  • Wilson, D. Dark and Light (Weidenfeld, London 1998)
  • Bryant, J. Kenwood: The Iveagh Bequest (English Heritage publication 2004)
  • Guinness, P. Arthur's Round (Peter Owen, London 2008)
  • Joyce, J. The Guinnesses (Poolbeg Press, Dublin 2009)
  • Bourke, Edward J. The Guinness Story: The Family, the Business and the Black Stuff (O'Brien Press, 2009). ISBN 978-1-84717-145-0
  • Smith, R. Guinness Down Under; the famous brew and the family come to Australia and New Zealand (Eyeglass Press, Tauranga 2018). ISBN 978-0-473-40842-8
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