I’ve been watching some feckin’ bollix on the box and found that Guinness isn’t good for me

PATRON OF THE ARTS: Garech Browne

Two of the most anticipated (i.e hyped) TV series have finally hit our small screens and both have failed to impress, not just me but a wide audience. We will come to The Hack later, but first The House of Guinness which is, as the trailer says, Fiction inspired by true stories. Or to put it in the local vernacular, Feckin' Bollix.

It's all very starry with the St James' Gate brewery in flames in the first episode. Violence everywhere and the F-word seemingly an essential part of the dialogue. Oh, and that great actor James Norton failing miserably to master the Dublin accent. I confess that this criticism is based on that first episode only but I doubt if I will return to the subsequent ones. 

It would have been so much better if Ivana Lowell, a member of the current vast family who came up with the idea after watching Downton Abbey, had concentrated on the more recent stories of this extraordinary clan. 

Tragedies abound; Olivia Channon, daughter of Thatcher favourite Paul, died of a drug overdose while at Oxford; Brian Guinness, Lord Moyne, married Diana Mitford before she fled into the arms of Oswald Mosley, Hitler's daft copycat in the UK; the fifth Marquess of Dufferin and Ava died of Aids; Lady Henrietta Guinness killed herself by jumping off a bridge. All of them part of the family and that is just for starters. Overdoses and suicides run through generations like the swirl of a newly poured pint and anyone thinking of marrying in should read the health warning.

Like any family, there are many exceptions and my late friend Garech Browne was one of them. He was the second son of Oonagh Guinness and Lord Oranmore and Browne. His father died at 100 and had the dubious distinction of having been a hereditary member of the House of Lords for 72 years without ever having spoken a single word there.

I met Garech in 1977 at an Island Records party to celebrate the label's signing of The Chieftains, that brilliant ensemble who made Irish traditional music (as opposed to rebel folk) fashionable, best-selling and worldwide. Garech helped Paddy Moloney put together the group — two fiddles, uillean pipes, penny whistle, bodhran and Irish harp — and recorded them first on his Claddagh label which was devoted to all things Irish. They went on to win an Oscar for their soundtrack to Kubrick's Barry Lyndon. 

Garech was the country's leading patron of the arts in the same way as his cousin Desmond Guinness was the saviour of Georgian Dublin when the city father eejits were intent on pulling it down. He looked, and to an extent was, the archetypal eccentric - a long straggly beard and flamboyant three-piece tweeds even on the hottest day. He would hold court in the horseshoe bar of the Shelbourne hotel and threw parties at Woodtown Manor, his grand Dublin home, or at Luggala, a white crenelated Gothic masterpiece in a valley in the Wicklow Mountains, arguable the most beautiful house in Ireland. 

I stayed with him several times and on one occasion at Woodtown we were joined by an impromptu bunch looking for a party, including most of the Chieftains and Marianne Faithful who arrived looking well, chain-smoking and then suddenly collapsing. Much concern, especially as no pulse could be found. An ambulance was called and arrived within 10 minutes. It looked as if the medics were about to pronounce her dead, during which time I was about to phone London with the splash when she elegantly rose from the beyond and lit a fag. All down to the after-effects of a heroine hit apparently. A warning to us all. 

The following evening Garech had arranged for the very grand music critic of the Irish Times to come to dinner; his half-brother Dominick was also a guest. Unfortunately, our host was not the greatest time-keeper and arrived for his own party an hour late. Dominick was painfully shy, unable to join any talk, small or otherwise, so for an hour I was the Master of Woodtown, trying to keep my end up in all matters Bach (a great favourite fortunately), Boccherini and Berlioz. But not the Beatles.

Luggala had been left to him by his mother Oonagh and was the setting for memorable parties (assuming one could remember come the morning after). Guests over the years included Mick Jagger, Lennon and McCartney, John Paul Getty, Jack Nicholson, John Huston, Lucien Freud, assorted Irish aristos and arty types including neighbour John Boorman.They all woke up a pitcher of vodka and tomato juice by their bed. Just in case. 

In the grounds overlooking Lough Tay is buried Garech's  younger brother Tara and here we return to the tragedy of the Guinnesses. In the words of John Lennon, Tara "blew his mind out in a car ... he didn't notice that the lights had changed ... nobody knew if he was from the House of Lords". Yes, he was the inspiration for Day in the Life. In fact Tara, just 21, was driving his Lotus Elan at up to 100mph along the Earl's Court Road when he crashed. 

A glittering bunch bonded by a fortune build on beer, some very sad, but my friend the kindly Garech, who died aged 78 in 2018, was the very best of them. 

*****

OK, The Hack. What to think? If ever a story needed telling well, this was it. The most powerful and popular newspaper in the English-speaking world goes rogue because its royal editor, Clive Goodman, and private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, found that hacking into voicemails, so easily done, was a great way to find out what celebrities were really up to. All with the knowledge of the News of the World's editor, Andy Coulson.

The story expands to involve police complicity and corruption, engulfs The Sun (and later the Mirror and possibly the Mail) and it's all down to the doggedness of Nick Davies and his newspaper, The Guardian. You all know the events which followed, the universal outrage of the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone, Leveson and Murdoch pulling the plug on the NoW.

So why clutter the TV series with dream sequences, flashbacks to Davies' childhood, those awful asides to the camera and telling the story of an axe murder at the same time simply because it involved police incompetence and shared private investigators used by the Murdoch papers? And, terrific actor though he undoubtedly is, Toby Jones is and never will be, Alan Rusbridger.

Like The House of Guinness, I nearly gave up after two episodes but decided to persevere. And by the end, I'm glad I did though it could have been so, so much better.   

        

As we were all told by Beaverbrook and his successors: Keep it simple, tell it well and never forget the drama. 

Or as we used to have it: Make it sing, make it on time, make it up!

*****

I'm no golf fan but even I have watched the highlights of the Ryder Cup because Europe's brilliant victory stuffed the USA's nasty, gurning, angry, shouty mob of fans. And what are the odds that Trump, who can never look at his ball without kicking it nearer the hole, will now order an official presidential inquiry into the collapse of American golf.

*****

AND FINALLY

This letter was published by the Irish Times last week, proving the old Irish saying the no good deed goes unpunished:

Sir, 

Many years ago I saw an elderly woman with a little white dog waiting to cross a busy Dublin road. I went to her and politely asked if I could help her get across. She glared at me and screamed  "F**k off, I am well able to cross a f**king road.

Yrs,

Frank Kilfeather, 

Delgany, Co Wicklow.  

ALAN FRAME

29 September 2025