The Hennessy vineyards and distillery: Cognac with a side order of history

Richard Hennessy’s story took him from Cork to France, where his cognac became a worldwide name, writes Raymond Blake

The Hennessy home, Cognac

Much has been written over the years about the Irish ‘Wine Geese’, the men who left these shores to start a new life trading in and making wine in Bordeaux. 

‘Wine Geese’ is a play on ‘Wild Geese’, a term which referred to those who fled Ireland for Europe after the Treaty of Limerick in 1691, following the defeat of Patrick Sarsfield’s Jacobite army in the Williamite War.