Irish Guinness Pub Label McKenna Kilmainhamwood c1960

Irish Guinness pub label from County Meath.  See enlarge image.

McKenna:  Mac Cionaoith  Mainly located in County Monaghan where they were lords of Truagh.  Also localised in counties Clare and Kerry - the last syllable is stressed as in Kennaw.

Genuine Bottle Label of this Period and From This pub - NOT a reproduction. 

Extremely fine paper was used on Guinness Labels. It is not possible nowadays to reproduce this very fine thin paper.

 Whenever required, a ream of labels was posted to the publican - each of these reams contained approximately 660 labels.  Guinness labels were never pre-glued.  The publicans prepared their own wall-paper paste.  There was a knack in holding the label - butterfly fashion and dipping into the paste - and slapping it on to the bottle!

Guinness labels (1880-1968)

Guinness labels were first put on bottles in 1880s

The first recorded pub to be issued official Guinness trade-mark labels (using the Brian Boru Harp symbol) was Clarkes public house,  Capel Street, Dublin in 1897.

The practice of putting the publicans name on Guinness labels officially stopped in 1968.   This was mainly due to new Health and Safety rules that were introduced in 1968.  These were strict rules compelling the publican to have a tiled room off the bottling area for labeling and other hygienic rules that were to expensive to comply with. By 1974 the wholesale bottling companies like Savage Smith, O'Byrnes and so forth had completely taken over the bottling and labeling of Guinness.

From 1910 Guinness labels had characteristic date codes. Read in pairs from right to left, gives the day, month, and year of bottling.   This coded practice of dating labels started in 1910 and ceased in 1953.

Collecting Guinness labels can be fascinating. Some show different variations in the amount of strings in the harp - also the way they are often printed off centre, some are oval, some square, some round. 

There are at least seven known distinct styles of label design.  But that does not include the very rare Invalid Stout and other 'specially designed for the publican' labels.

Guinness Brewery

The Guinness family became the most successful brewing dynasty and one of Ireland's greatest commercial success stories of the 19th century. Founded by Arthur Guinness (1729 - 1803), son of a Kildare land agent, he commenced brewing in Leixlip in 1756 and three years later took over a disused brewery at James Street in Dublin. His son, also Arthur, inherited the brewery along with his father's extensive flour milling interests. He became a director of the Bank of Ireland in 1808 and a governor from 1820. Like his father, he was a committed member of the Church of Ireland, and active in a range of philanthropic ventures, Arthur 11 supported Catholic emancipation and parliamentary reform, but declined to back Daniel O'Connell's repeal agitation.

Guinness's Dublin brewery initially produced ale and beer, to which by the 1790s it had added the darker drink, porter. From the 1820s its better porters had begun to be described as 'stout', 'double stout' and later 'triple stout'. Initially it produced mainly for the Dublin market, but English outlets expanded rapidly from the 1820s and by 1840 accounted for more than half of total sales. The period of most dramatic growth was from the 1850s. By the 1930s it had become the seventh largest company in the world.

Measures:   2.75" X 2.25".

Condition:   Unused.

Please note world wide fixed shipping rate.

IF YOU LIVE ON THE ISLAND OF IRELAND - HALF THE RATE.

Allow $4.00 (this amount will ship multiples of labels!) for insurance, packing and shipping.
Good Luck!

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