St. James's Gate, located off the south quays of

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

, on James's Street, was the western entrance to the city during the Middle Ages. During this time the gate was the traditional starting point for the Camino pilgrimage from Dublin to

Santiago de Compostela Santiago de Compostela is the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia, in northwestern Spain. The city has its origin in the shrine of Saint James the Great, now the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, as the destination of the Way of S ...

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. Though the original medieval gate was demolished in 1734, the gate gave its name to the area in which it was located, and in particular to the St. James's Gate Brewery (which was taken over by Arthur Guinness in 1759).

Medieval city gate

As a walled city, the main entrances to Dublin were protected by city gates. St. James's Gate was the city's western entrance, and was named for the 12th century church and parish of St. James. Also named for St. James, a

holy well A holy well or sacred spring is a well, spring or small pool of water revered either in a Christian or pagan context, sometimes both. The water of holy wells is often thought to have healing qualities, through the numinous presence of its guar ...

in the area was the location of a longstanding summer festival. Standing for up to 5 centuries, the gate was a toll point for goods entering the city. It is referenced in 13th-century texts, is marked on John Speed's 17th-century map of Dublin, and on Charles Brooking's early 18th-century map of the city. Dilapidated by time, the medieval gate was demolished by the mid 18th century.

Brewing in the area

The St James's area has been associated with the brewing trade since the 17th century. A number of breweries had been established in Dublin up to the mid-17th century - one such brewery established by Alderman Giles Mee at St. James's gate around 1670. Giles Mee was given a lease to the water rights at St James's Gate (called "The Pipes") by

Dublin Corporation Dublin Corporation (), known by generations of Dubliners simply as ''The Corpo'', is the former name of the city government and its administrative organisation in Dublin since the 1100s. Significantly re-structured in 1660-1661, even more sign ...

. These rights passed to his son-in-law, Sir Mark Rainsford, a city

alderman An alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council member chosen by the elected members t ...

who was Mayor of Dublin between 1700 and 1701. Rainsford leveraged these water rights and, according to deeds from 1693, was producing "beer and fine ales" from St. James's Gate. There were also other brewers in and around St. James's Gate (owing to the water supply available in the area), and Rainsford's enterprise was not significantly different from the others. (Beer and ale were commodity products at the time as they were more commonly consumed than water - which contained contaminants that were removed in brewing.) Sir Mark Rainsford died in 1709, and the lease passed to his son - also Mark Rainsford Esq. In 1715, the Rainsfords put the premises up for lease and it was taken by Captain Paul Espinasse. Espinasse reputedly had a role in the demolition of the original medieval gate - to ease access to the site and the city. Espinasse died in a fall from his horse near the Black Bull Inn at Drogheda in 1750. For ten years the brewery site was on the market, and by 1759 the lease was in the hands of a third Mark Rainsford, the grandson of Sir Mark Rainsford. Arthur Guinness was interested in the premises, and on 31 December 1759, the lease was signed over to Guinness for 9,000 years at £45 per year. The site has been the location of the Guinness brewery ever since. Guinness has expanded well beyond the original 4-acre lot, and has consequently bought out the property, rendering the 9,000-year lease from 1759 redundant.

References

{{coord, 53.343349, N, 6.284617, W, type:landmark_region:IE, display=title Buildings and structures in Dublin (city) History of County Dublin Culture in Dublin (city)