His first brewery was at Leixlip, County Kildare. He was able to lease
the small establishment in 1756 thanks to a legacy of œ100 left to him
by Dr. Arthur Price, the Archbishop of Cashel. Three years later, leaving
his brother Richard to take care of the Leixlip enterprise, he acquired
a neglected brewery on a derelict acre at James's Gate, Dublin. The rent
was œ45 per annum and the lease was for 9,000 years.
In 1761 he married a Dublin heiress, Olivia Whitmore, and two years
later he was able to buy a country house at Beaumont, County Dublin. By
the age of sixty-four he had extended the brewery, invested about œ8,000
in Kilmainham flour mills and had fathered no less than
21 children, of whom only ten survived. He made financial provisions
for his wife and his personal estate, valued for probate at around œ23,000
went to his children.
Source: Leo van de Pas |
