The world of war that stretched from St James’s Gate to fields of Flanders

An exhibition dedicated to Guinness employees who fought in the First World War was opened by broadcaster Gay Byrne in Dublin yesterday.

Byrne, whose father fought in the war, launched the Diageo Guinness World War 1 Archive exhibition at The Ireland Fund’s Gallery in The Little Museum.

The exhibition, which is in place for six weeks, details the experiences of Guinness employees who joined the British armed forces during the First World War, exploring through the letters, images, journals and artefacts, the impact of the conflict on their lives and the contribution of the Guinness company to the war effort.

The content from the exhibition comes from the Guinness Archive which is located in the Guinness Storehouse at St James’s Gate in Dublin.

Central to the exhibition is the original Roll of Honour, produced by the company to preserve a record of those who gave their services and, in many instances, their lives to the war effort. Over 800 Guinness employees served in the British forces during the First World War and records indicate that 103 of them died during the war.

Diageo Ireland country director David Smith described the exhibition as “a tribute to the sacrifices that so many within Guinness made to the World War 1 effort. To walk through it is to get a sense of the impact World War 1 had on the lives of so many”.

Gay Byrne, whose father worked in Guinness after the war, said: “This exhibition is of exceptional significance and is entirely unique because it is the story of a war seen through the eyes of individual men and their families and also through a patriarchal company that had a major influence on employee’s lives, endeavouring to provide for those who went to war and to make a meaningful contribution to the war effort”.

Guinness made special efforts for employees who joined the armed forces, paying half wages to the soldiers’ families at home and guaranteeing their jobs when they returned.

The war also affected the daily operations of the brewery in Dublin. The company lent motor vehicles to military authorities “in case of national emergency” and horses and motor vehicles were sold to the Government.

The company lost its first steamship, the SS W.M. Barkley, during the War. On October 12, 1917, it was torpedoed and sunk off the Kish Lighthouse in the Irish Sea. Five Guinness crewmen perished and seven were rescued.

The Little Museum director Simon O’ Connor, who curated the exhibition, said: “The Guinness Archive maintained by Diageo is one of the most carefully preserved archives in the country, as curator we wanted to do more than document, we wanted to tell the story through the experiences of the employees and their families.”

For more information visit www.guinness-storehouse.com/en/Archive.aspx