Moyvore Guinness says Netflix series ‘amusing but inaccurate’

It might be good TV, but it isn’t historically accurate, is the verdict of a Westmeath man who is currently watching a depiction of his family story play out on Netflix.

Kieran Arthur Guinness, resident of Moyvore; great-great-great-great-grandson of the original Arthur Guinness, is discussing ‘House of Guinness’ – the rollicking, high octane drama, sound-tracked with a bang up to date list from the who’s who of current Irish musical acts (Kneecap, The Mary Wallopers, Fontaines DC).

“It’s great television; it’s quite amusing – but they’ve got it all wrong,” he says.

“The way they portrayed my great-grandfather and his brothers – well, they got a lot wrong. But then we know what actually happened.”

It’s with that generation that the show starts, Kieran’s great grandfather Edward, his brothers Arthur and Benjamin and their sister Anne. Their father, Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness, has just died, and in his will he bequeaths the Guinness brewery to Edward and Arthur.

Right from the off, however, fiction takes precedence over facts: the show depicts a riot at Sir Benjamin’s funeral allegedly instigated by the Fenians; however, historically, the funeral was a sober, respectful event attended by people of all classes.

“There was no sort of Fenian anti-the-brewery feeling that I’ve ever heard of. It’s news to me – I don’t think it’s true, because The Fenians weren’t prominent at that stage.”

Kieran first became aware that the eight-part series was in production about a year ago, and he admits that he had been “inquisitive” about it, and his daughter – Wilson’s Hospital pupil Cecily – watched the first episode with him.

Is it a strange feeling to watch a series about your ancestors? “Well,” he replies, in the elegant tones of his mixed British Irish upbringing, “Quite. But it’s so distant now. Edward Cecil was my great grandfather. He was the clever one. He was the youngest of the four and I think the portrayal of him isn’t that bad.

“The other three, they’re completely wrong.”

Kieran never met his great-grandfather, who was the 1st Earl of Iveagh: he died in 1927. He also never met his grandfather, Walter Edward Guinness, 1st Baron Moyne (1880–1944), who was an Anglo-Irish politician, soldier, and businessman. Walter served as a British Conservative MP and later held key government posts, including Minister of State in the Middle East during World War II, until his assassination in Cairo by a Zionist militant group in 1944.

Born four years after his grandfather’s death, Kieran is son of Bryan Walter Guinness, 2nd Baron Moyne, and his second wife, Elizabeth Nelson.

By his first wife, the Hon Diana Mitford, Bryan was father of two children (one of whom was the late Desmond Guinness, co-founder of the Irish Georgian Society), and with Elizabeth he had nine children.

“My mother was very clever,” he jokes. “She had alternate sexes all the way down – girl,boy, girl,boy.”

He adds that she was Scottish by birth: “Very Scottish. So I’m Celtic, I’m pure Celtic. There’s no English in me.”

Clever too was the way Bryan decided his six sons would be named, meaning Kieran doesn’t have to think hard to work out how many generations back he is from the man who started the dynasty: “All of our second names are of our ancestors going back, so I can tell by adding how far down the line I am how many ‘greats’ there are.

“So there was my eldest brother Jonathan Bryan – Bryan was my father’s name; Desmond Walter – that was my grandfather’s name; then Diarmid Edward – named after Edward Cecil; then Finn Benjamin, who is named after the one who died in the film; and I’m Kieran Arthur.”

The family had two Arthurs in a row – Arthur the founder (1725-1803) then his son Arthur (1768 -1855).

While the first episode portrays a Guinness family resented by ‘The Fenians’, the family’s relationship with nationalism is much more nuanced, and Kieran is proud of the contribution to Irish society made by the Iveagh Trust.

His great-grandfather, Edward Cecil Guinness, established the Iveagh Trust in the late 19th century, funding social housing schemes that transformed parts of inner-city Dublin.

“He gave a huge amount of money to the Trust, clearing slums around St Patrick’s Cathedral and the castle area,” Kieran says. “And I’m still a trustee today. We still provide social housing, and we’re one of the biggest organisations of our kind in the country.”

The Trust’s Iveagh Hostel on Bride Street – once a place for itinerant workers and later for men struggling with homelessness and alcoholism – also still exists. “Nowadays it’s all long-term,” he explains. “We’d have around 200 men staying there. It’s not glamorous, but it’s needed.”

For Kieran, the philanthropic thread of the family story matters more than how television dramas portray his ancestors.

Kieran studied Botany at Oxford, and has lived and farmed in Westmeath for 40 years now. He actually grew up with farming: “I was brought up half in Dublin – Castleknock – and half in Wiltshire in England. We still farm in Castleknock – we’ve just stopped milking – but we still farm there, we have cattle. Here I’ve always had Just beef – cattle and horses.”

The horses in question are Connemara ponies, of which he breeds around 15 each year. “They’re wonderful – quiet, sensible, strong. A mother and daughter can share the same pony. Perfect for family riding,” he says.

As well as daughter Cecily, who as a schoolgirl still lives with Kieran and his partner, Sophie Gräfin von Maltzan Freiin zu Wartenberg und Penzlin, Kieran is father of Rebecca, who lives in Clonmellon; Kate, an interior designer in Wiltshire; Malachy, who had an education enterprise in London and who is now farming in Scotland; and Lorcan, who lives in London.

Even as television dramas re-imagine the Guinnesses as rebels, rogues, or grandees, Kieran keeps a measured perspective.

“It’s not accurate, but it’s entertaining. We’ll all watch it, and then when the family meets we’ll have our opinions. But we know our own history.”