House Of Guinness: Netflix’s eight-episode saga mining Ireland’s brewing dynasty

Netflix’s House Of Guinness is an eight-episode drama from Steven Knight that reimagines the Irish brewing dynasty at the height of its wealth and influence. Starring James Norton, the series has been described by some as “The Crown... with beer” and blends sweeping family power plays with social upheaval and a city-wide sense of change as 19th-century Dublin hums with political and religious tension.

Set in 1868, after the death of Sir Benjamin Guinness, the patriarch, the show centers on four siblings—Arthur (Anthony Boyle), Edward (Louis Partridge), Benjamin (Fionn O’Shea) and Anne (Emily Fairn)—as they contend over a vast fortune and a brewery empire that also includes Ashford Castle. The sprawling enterprise links Dublin to Mayo and Wicklow, underscoring the scale of the family’s influence. The will complicates the balance of power: the brewery is not bequeathed to a single heir but must be shared, forcing the brothers to navigate loyalty, rivalries and a public image the family has long guarded. The period backdrop is as much a character as the people, with Catholic opposition to alcohol, the Fenian movement and social reform shaping the world in which the Guinnesses operate.

In a central twist, the series foregrounds a constellation of scandals that echo the era’s tabloid-fodder folklore. Arthur is depicted as gay—a perilous secret in conservative Ireland of the time—and the show hints at one of the era’s infamous social scenes, including a state of affairs that could ruin reputations if exposed. The narrative expands beyond private misdeeds to include public flirtations with politics and reform as the siblings confront a family history of extravagant living, strategic marriages and bets on Ireland’s future. Aunt Agnes, played by Dervla Kirwan, becomes the de facto matriarch, trying to steer the clan’s name through a gauntlet of arranged alliances, whispered affairs and the growing appetite for social change. As the siblings’ ambitions collide with the needs of their workers, the drama folds in issues of gender, power and the delicate line between philanthropy and control.

Arthur’s sister Anne, married and transgressive in her own rights, also threads a path between propriety and rebellion, while the foreman Rafferty—an almost fictional counterbalance to the real family—operates as a shadowy influence within the business and the household. The cast includes Dervla Kirwan as Aunt Agnes, who anchors the family’s public persona even as the heirs pursue their own desires. Danielle Galligan plays Lady Olivia Hedges, a poised aristocrat entangled in a web of financial and romantic arrangements that speak to the era’s social constraints. Emily Fairn’s Anne and Anthony Boyle’s Arthur star alongside Louis Partridge and Fionn O’Shea, with the ensemble driven by Knight’s signature blend of historical texture and heightened storytelling.

Knight, known for productions such as SAS Rogue Heroes and A Thousand Blows, emphasizes that the project is rooted in truth while embracing artistic license. He notes that the Guinness family’s history includes political flirtations, alliances with artists, and a willingness to live on the edge of conventional life. The show’s tone, he suggests, mixes riotous energy with intimate stakes—the kind of collision between wealth, desire and public obligation that defines a sprawling epic rather than a dry biopic.

From the outset, the production team sought to recreate the look and feel of 1860s Dublin with careful attention to place and texture. The original Guinness family home, Iveagh House in Dublin, could not be used, so the production recreated it at a studio in Manchester. The brewery itself was rebuilt in Liverpool’s Stanley Dock, a setting chosen for its cobbles and warehouses that resemble a mid-century Dublin. On any given day, hundreds of extras, horses, coal furnaces and steam machines contributed to a sensory vision of a working brewery, while the interior spaces conveyed the polish of upper-class life through drawing-room scenes and formal gatherings. James Norton, who plays Rafferty, notes that the production design helped anchor his performance, from the gritty energy of the brewery to the refined calm of aristocratic drawing rooms.

The series also foregrounds authenticity in writing and production choices. Knight and his team insisted on visual cues that reflect the era’s social climate without turning the story into a documentary. Real locations were combined with studio work to balance public history with the private drama that unfolds within a single family’s walls. Norton, who also delivers a nuanced performance as Rafferty, describes the production as a study in contrasts: “You could taste the grit, the industry, the sweat. Then you’d switch to a stately home for a drawing-room scene—refinement and danger in the same breath.” The show’s commitment to texture extends to small but telling details, like fabric and medals being integrated into a character’s wardrobe to signal inner conflict, a nod to the meticulous craft of the costume department.

The idea for House Of Guinness originated with Ivana Lowell, a descendant of the Guinness family, who recalled overhearing stories of eccentric ancestors and believed these lives would translate to television. Lowell’s grandmother Maureen Guinness was part of the line known in the 1930s as the Golden Guinness Girls, a detail the project wove into the broader narrative about a dynasty that mattered to Ireland and its cultural imagination. Lowell worked to find the balance between dramatic height and historical fidelity, arguing that the series should celebrate both the family’s philanthropy and its turbulence. Knight’s adaptation brings the family’s complexities to the fore, underscoring how wealth and influence can coexist with personal risk, public scrutiny and a thirst for social reform.

The show’s appeal, as pitched by Knight and echoed by stars like Kirwan and Norton, lies not only in its sense of wealth and power but in the pleasure and danger of living on the edge—the “riotous and sexy” life that Aunt Agnes embodies and the “power, sex and desire” that Norton describes. Rafferty’s intrigue and the siblings’ conflicting ambitions create a microcosm of a society in transition, where politics, religion and business collide with family loyalties and private longing. The series depicts a Dublin where a factory floor and a drawing room are not so far apart, and where the wealth generated by beer becomes both a shield and a burden for a family navigating a changing world.

House Of Guinness streams on Netflix starting 25 September.