Last call after 300 years in city

BY the time the famous St Francis Abbey Brewery in Kilkenny reaches its 300th birthday in 2010, activity will have all but stopped following yesterday’s Diageo announcement.

The shutdown, and loss of 93 jobs, will be complete within five years, bringing an end to a tradition which stretches 49 years further back than St James’s Gate Brewery.

Reaction in the historic city yesterday — where the Smithwick’s brewery once employed more than 300 people — was a blend of sadness, disappointment and resignation, although the news didn’t come as an outright shock.

“It’s been mooted for some time,” said SIPTU representative Colleen Minihane, “for about the past year that all the Diageo sites in the country were under review and that there would be an announcement in May. While we’re delighted for colleagues in St James’s Gate, that it’s to be redeveloped, it’s a sad blow for Kilkenny.”

Ms Minihane welcomed the long lead-in time to the 2012 closure and said it would give SIPTU, which represents 55 of the workers, time to secure “appropriate redundancy” packages for those who want them, and redeployment to Dublin for others.

“We hope it will be possible for workers to relocate to a site on the Kilkenny side. We’ve always achieved great terms and conditions with Diageo, so people will be aiming to redeploy with what is a good employer.”

Mayor of Kilkenny Cllr Marie Fitzpatrick said she was “disappointed and saddened” at the news. “It has been a wonderful employer for Kilkenny city over many years,” she said.

The brewery was located in the heart of Kilkenny’s historic centre, Parliament Street/Irishtown, and that any redevelopment “will have to incorporate the old abbey”.

Local Green Party councillor Malcolm Noonan called for the development of a micro-brewery and an interpretive centre on the site of the brewery.