‘Dickie Beamish would be turning in his grave’

IT SURVIVED famine, wars and recessions but there was anger on the streets of Cork yesterday after a boardroom decision to close the country’s oldest brewery.

One of the city’s best-known characters said Ireland, and not just Cork, will lose part of its heart and soul when Dutch brewing giant Heineken closes the 1792 founded Beamish & Crawford next year.

Comedy legend Billa O’Connell, 79, a former Beamish sales rep and one of its best known faces, said the firm’s great figurehead, Richard (Dickie) Beamish, would be disgusted.