Guinness rise to be cream of the crop

New series omits dark period in tale

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THE new Netflix series about Ireland's Guinness family charts some turbulent times in the brewing dynasty's history — but it omits a dark period in their fortunes after The Famine had ravaged the country.

The high-profile show House of Guinness comes to the streamer on September 25 and begins in 1868, following the death of brewing giant Arthur Guinness's grandson Benjamin Lee Guinness.

But Benjamin's cutthroat business model to burn his rivals and establish his family as brewing world leaders is overlooked by the writers of the Netflix drama.

And visitors will not find any trace of it in the Guinness Storehouse museum in Dublin either, according to well-known Irish genealogist Fiona Fitzsimons.

Ms Fitzsimons, of the Irish Family History Centre in EPIC museum, said: "We worked with RTE in 2009 for the documentary Ancestors during the Famine.