Arthur Guinness launches Guinness Brewing Company

Arthur Guinness was the founder of the Guinness brewery business, an entrepreneur, visionary and philanthropist.

Guinness laid the foundations for Guinness Brewery. At 27, in 1752, Guinness's godfather Arthur Price, Archbishop of Cashel, bequeathed him £100 in his will. Guinness invested the money and in 1755 had a brewery at Leixlip, just 17 km from Dublin. In 1759, Guinness went to the city and set up his own business. He got a 9,000 year lease on the four-acre brewery at St. James's Gate from Mark Rainsford for an annual rent of £45.

St. James's Gate Brewery (Grúdlann Gheata Shan Séamuis in Irish) is a brewery founded in 1759 in Dublin, Ireland by Arthur Guinness. The company is now part of Diageo. The main product is Guinness.

Leased for 9,000 years in 1759 by Arthur Guinness at £45 per year, St. James's Gate has been the home of Guinness ever since. It became the largest brewery in Ireland in 1838, and was the largest in the world in 1914, covering 64 acres. Although no longer the largest brewery in the world, it is still the largest brewer of stout in the world. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the brewery owned most of the buildings in the surrounding area, including many streets of housing for brewery employees, and offices associated with the brewery. The brewery also made all of its own power using its own power plant.

There is an attached exhibition on the 250-year-old history of Guinness, called the Guinness Storehouse.

Arthur Guinness started brewing ales from 1759 in Leixlip, then at the St. James's Gate Brewery, Dublin, Ireland. On 31 December he signed (up to) a 9,000 year lease at £45 per annum for the unused brewery. Ten years later on 19 May 1769 Guinness exported his ale for the first time, when six and a half barrels were shipped to England.