There is no other company, industry or premises more closely aligned — indeed almost synonymous — with its home town than Guinness's St James's Gate brewery and Dublin city. From the company's modest beginnings in 1759 to its heyday in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and its continued strength into the twenty-first century, Guinness has had an enormous influence over the city's economic, social and cultural life. In this extensive illustrated study, Tony Corcoran examines the magnitude of the brewery's operation, and the working lives of the thousands of Dublin people who depended on Guinness for their livelihood, either directly or indirectly. The company's extremely progressive treatment of its workers — in terms of health, training and housing — is revealed in detail, as is the Guinness family's philanthropy and compassion towards the less well-off residents of the city. The book is a labor of love, full of anecdote, humor and historical insights into one of Dublin's most important and best-loved institutions.