It is not complicated, not rocket science or astrophysics, to see that there is something mysterious going on with the great national drink, Guinness. The advertisements tell us everything - not least because for so many years Guinness advertising traded on a peculiar image-literacy which was the envy of advertisers everywhere. All that was needed to communicate "Guinness" to the television viewer was the combination of black and white. No further words or message were required.
This gave advertising agencies enormous freedom to play with the imagination of the viewer: self-indulgence was not merely tolerated but could be justified because everyone knew what the advertisement was for. Guinness advertisements became part of a great national cultural discourse. Their variations, however elaborate and fanciful, were rooted to certain certainties: that Guinness was a drink which was cherished for its solidity, its flavour, its appearance, its longevity, its head.
Market predictions
There was, to be sure, a lot of hokum in this. The Guinness flavour has been gradually diminished over the years in accordance with market predictions that people would want cooler drinks with less flavour; but it was all done invisibly. Guinness even managed to woo its market over to chilled Guinness rather than the warmer, chewier stout of old. Yet throughout the changes Guinness was orchestrating, one felt that Guinness management was in tune with the people it was selling to. There was an actual relationship which was based on respect. Guinness knew that if it strayed too far from the core values of traditional stout, it might as well be selling hamburgers.
And selling hamburgers is precisely what Guinness is doing now - or rather, its conglomerate-owner, Diageo is. Diageo is many things: it is Burger King, it is Grand Metropolitan Hotels, it is Haagen-Dazs ice cream, it is various Scotch whiskies, it is Old El Paso Mexican foods - for all I know it might well be the Johnny Adair Retirement Home for Elderly Catholics. I understand little about the activities of major multinational combines, but I have gleaned that Diageo is keen to get rid of certain of its products, such as its hamburger shops and our Mexican friends, in order to concentrate on a core business of alcohol.
But something else is happening too: the old relationship between Guinness and the pint-drinker of Ireland is changing. The advertisements, with their US accents, tell us this. They are designed not for the traditional Guinness drinker, literate in the lore of Guinness advertising, but for the young drinker who has never drunk Guinness before. Guinness is rebranding its stout into an iced unstout, to be drunk by young men who wear baseball hats back to front and who have the attention span of a dead badger.
That is fine. That might be the rising market. But Guinness can hardly expect to keep the loyalty of traditional Guinness drinkers while it is adulterating both the concept of its drink and its place within the traditional popular culture of the Irish people. If it wants to sell an ice-cold black lager to idiots who wear sunglasses in all weathers and play the cretin-thump of rap music in their cars with the windows open, that's fine; but it can't expect to take its traditional drinkers with it.
Sensitive gentlemen
Diageo might well sell the Guinness brand, which is probably the best thing which could happen to the stout. But whatever the future of the name, I'd be surprised if sooner or later the address wasn't for sale. St James's Gate is the largest area of land with a single owner in central Dublin. Diageo is not run by sensitive gentlemen who pay any regard to the relationship between Guinness and the people of Dublin, but by culturally inert number-crunchers who know two things: one is that Guinness can be made just about anywhere in the world, especially if it is to be drunk ice-cold; and two, their driven duty is to maximise earnings both for themselves and their shareholders.
How much is St James's Gate worth? Its area can't be any less than a hundred acres. So what would they fetch? One hundred million? Two? Five? That piece of string there: its length, please? And what multinational, with the local loyalties of a 'flu epidemic, is going to sit on unrealised assets like that? Admittedly, it's hard to see Colin Storm, the present chief executive of Guinness worldwide, a gentleman and a good friend to Ireland, supervising the destruction of the St James's Gate empire. But it is not a question of gentlemen but of numbers, and the numbers which must reverberate through a Diageo accountant's mind at the thought of a "For Sale" sign over St James's Gate site would turn a Cistercian in a beehive hut into a gibberingly acquisitive madman, never mind a creature who chose to study money for a living.
Valuable land
Oh, I could be wrong: Diageo might be run by a branch of the Samaritans who think that the purpose of Guinness Ireland is to run swimming pools for retired employees and to keep some of the most valuable land in Europe as a relatively unprofitable brewery, rather than realise its full worth as real estate.
That is one option. The other is for Guinness to up sticks and leave St James's Gate, finally abandoning the place in Irish life which it has held for the best part of two centuries. For that relationship is probably passing, just as the other great traditional relationships between the Irish people, their churches and their political parties are passing too. Farewell, Uncle Arthur. It's been good to know you.