While telling about the St.Stephan’s Green we promised to tell a little bit about Sir Arthur Guinness. The Guinness family is famous worldwide because of the Guinness beer brand and the Guinness Book of World Records. Well, the founder of beer producing, by the way he was also Arthur Guinness; he was the great-grandfather of the hero of this story.
Sir Arthur Guinness got a brilliant education first in a privileged private school of Elton, England and then at the Trinity College Dublin.
Having decided to devote his life to political activities, Arthur Guinness sold his share in the family business for 600,000£ to his brother, Edward. It should be noted that Sir Arthur Guinness got his part of the heritage at a very early age, when he was 27. Sometime later, Sir Arthur Guinness got barony title Ardelaun that in the Irish language means “a high island on the lake”.
This title was connected with the place of the family castle of the Guinness “Ashford” in the County of Mayo, bought by his father in 1852. As a side note, Sir Arthur Guinness did not have children and after he had gone, the castle was inherited by his nephew Ernst, who in 1932 sold the estate together with the castle. At present, Ashford Castle is one of the best luxury hotels in Ireland, where Stars and Presidents of different countries stay.
Father of Sir Arthur Guinness, Benjamin, after being elected the Lord-major of Dublin, widened his estate of St. Ann’s in the district of Raheny. Sir Arthur Guinness, at his part, after having inherited the estate, hired a professional landscape designer and improved the estate to its modern look, the look of St. Ann’s Park.
