Wednesday 28 October 2015

What is it with Nazis and Irish Stout?

First there was the deeply disturbing Nazi Guinness posters, now I've seen that one of the Beamish family married Hermann Göring:
“Carin was the great-great- granddaughter of William Beamish and her mother was Swedish – she met Goering in Sweden in 1920 and they married and settled in Munich, where she joined the Nazi party and she helped Goering escape after the failed Beer Hall putsch”

The report in the paper seems to contain a number of inaccuracies, as this link shows that Carin Göring's maiden name wasn't Beamish. But still, she was a direct descendant of the founder, and she did become an enthusiastic Nazi.

This lead me to checking out the other big Irish stout to see if it too had a Nazi taint, but you'll be pleased to here the Murphys are militant anti-Nazis





6 comments:

  1. In 1945 Eamon De Valera, the Irish President, went to the German embassy in Dublin and signed the condolence book when Hitler shot himself in his bunker.

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    1. De Valera was Taoiseach in 1945, not President, and condolences on the death of a foreign leader is normal protocol. Though I think that incident was one of several slightly childish shows of independence in the gap between Ireland adopting the constitution of a republic in 1937 and the UK recognising it in 1949.

      I'd be reasonably sure that Guinness's overtures to Nazi Germany were handled by company headquarters in London.

      And Carin, well, European high society in thrall to the Nazis isn't exactly news, and I gather she was a long way from her great-grandfather's brewing business. It's not like she was first in line to the throne, sorry, board of directors.

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    2. Taoiseach?

      "Curry my yoghurt can coca coalyer"

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  2. Irish nationalism, like all forms of nationalism, is a reactionary ideology for which I have no time. So I also take a dim view of people quoting bigoted pricks from the DUP. As to whether the Irish, British, or Swedish ruling class were more pro-nazi I don't really care, as I've no time for any of them either.

    But back to the stout. As a beer nerd the Beamish thing was enough to arouse my curiosity, though the link is indeed over egged.

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  3. Maybe because - as one of the English teachers at our school said to a South African - it's mostly black but the white minority is still on top.

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