Heritage group warns of battle over brewery site

HERITAGE campaigners have thrown down the gauntlet to brewing giant Heineken just days before it closes Ireland’s oldest brewery with the loss of 120 jobs.

The National Conservation and Heritage Group (NCHG) said unless Heineken gives a clear statement soon about its future plans for Cork’s historic Beamish and Crawford site, they will take to the streets to save the culture, history and heritage of the South Main Street facility.

“Nothing less than a living breathing micro-brewery and tourist centre will be acceptable on this heritage site,” NCHG secretary Mick Murphy said.

Heineken is in the final stages of winding down operations at the Beamish brewery. It was due to close tomorrow, but logistics have delayed the closure.

The NCHG, which is trying to persuade Heineken to develop a tourism-focused micro-brewery and heritage centre there — along the same lines at the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin — has given company bosses two weeks to engage with them in a “meaningful way” about the future of the site.

NCHG chairman Damien Cassidy said activists are ready to take to the streets if Heineken doesn’t engage.

“If we have not heard from the company by April 14, if there is not a commitment telling us that brewing will continue on the site, we are going to ask the people of Cork, in the form of a petition, to back our campaign,” he said.

“We will do what we did when it came to the campaign to save Bewley’s on Dublin’s Grafton Street when we collected 20,000 signatures.

“History is going down the Lee here. Heineken bought the site knowing full well that it was a historic site.”

Meanwhile, city planners are drafting a detailed plan for the South Gate area, in which Beamish is located, to give prospective owners of the brewery site an idea of what type of development might be permitted there.