Arthur Guinness
The story of Ireland's most recognisable cultural icon, the pint of plain, begins with Arthur Guinness.
Arthur was born in 1725 and came from an upper class Protestant Anglo-Irish family. He was born in Celbridge, Co. Kildare - The Black Stuff #1 and his grave is in nearby Oughterard, in his mother’s family plot: So this is where you are, Arthur. He married a woman named Olivia Whitmore in Dublin in 1761 and they had 21 children, although sadly only 10 survived until adulthood. They lived in various locations in Dublin including Beaumont House and Mountjoy Square. He died in 1803 at the ripe old age of 78, a great achievement for those times.
But where does the pint of plain come into all of this?
In 1755 Arthur had leased a brewery out in Leixlip, Kildare. It brewed ale, a popular drink at the time and a standard in any public house. By 1759, he had made enough money to rent another, much bigger brewery in St. James’ Gate, Dublin, where you now find yourself standing, signing a lease for 9,000 years at £45 per year! Visitors to the Guinness Storehouse can still see the original lease with Arthur’s distinctive signature (which also happens to be the background image for this cache page).
Originally the Guinness company only brewed ale, and it wasn’t until 1778 that porter (stout) came along. After expanding the brewery in 1799, the company then switched to only making porter. They did, however, divide this into three categories; single stout, double or extra stout, and foreign stout, which was exported.
The task
- Go to the listed coordinates, where the railway tracks stop.
- Take a photo like the one below, with the iconic brewery gate in the background, no need for a can of anything, but DO put something representing YOU in the photo - it could be a selfie, it could be a thumb-ups, it could be your GPSr, it could be your favourite trackable or... it could be something creative and clever giving a lovely memory of your visit to St. James's Gate - you decide!
- Log your find - and attached your photo TO THE LOG.
- DON'T send your photo to me via the message centre.
- Understand that if you do not upload your photo within a reasonable period of time, I will delete your log. No discussion will be entertained.
- Go for a pint (optional).
Profile Souvenir
Once you have logged your find on this cache, you are welcome to use this profile souvenir on your Geocaching Profile.
You can paste this code on to your profile page:
<a href="http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?wp=GC7B7RT"> <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/gs-geo-images/20d7835e-bd84-4be1-922b-2159487ea78f.png" alt="Guinness Virtual Profile Souvenir" width="206" height="81" /> </a>
Virtual Reward - 2017/2018
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between August 24, 2017 and August 24, 2018. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards on the Geocaching Blog.
