The distilling industry in Offaly 1780-1954 (Part 4)

(Reprinted from Harman Murtagh (ed.), Irish Midland Studies: Essays in honour of N. W. English, Athlone 1980, pp 213-228. Copyright reserved for private use only.)

Part 4
THE TULLAMORE DISTILLERY,
1881 TO 1954

Only one Offaly distillery that of B. Daly & Co. at Tullamore entered the present century. Birr distillery ceased production in 1889 after a disastrous fire and, as has been seen, Banagher closed in 1898.¹ There are some grounds for believing that Tullamore’s position was just as difficult as that which had prevailed at Banagher. In 1881 Bernard Daly, the proprietor of the distillery, found it necessary to mortgage the premises to obtain a loan of c. £40,000.² Apparently the distillery was in financial difficulties because the money could hardly have been used to finance capital investment which had been undertaken in the period 1869 to 1875.³ Bernard Daly died in May 1887, and in his will he bequeathed the Tullamore distillery to his wife ‘to do what she thought proper with’.⁴ The balance owing to the Bank of Ireland on the 1881 mortgage of the distillery premises was £32,054.⁵ The distillery might have had to go into liquidation at the time but that J. R. Mallins, a Dublin wine and spirit merchant, entered into a bond of £67,200 for the due administration of the Daly estate.⁶

In January 1888 Daly’s widow, their son Bernard Daly, and a cousin B. S. Mara, agreed to enter a partnership to carry on the business under the name of B. Daly & Co.⁷ Mallins contracted to buy all the unsold stocks in the stores of the distillery within two years. The value of the whiskey stocks amounted to c. £40,000. Mallins was also nominated the sole agent for the purchase of the whiskey manufactured at Tullamore for a period of fifteen years, with the option of holding the agency for a further six years, if required.⁸ By August 1891 the debt owing to the Bank of Ireland on the 1881 mortgage had been entirely paid, partly out of the whiskey stocks owned by B. Daly & Co. and partly out of money advanced by Mallins.⁹ It is not known how the distillery fared under the partnership, or what problems it had to face. Perhaps Tullamore encountered the same difficulties as the Banagher and Dublin City Distilleries. In any case in July 1901 Mallins took an action against B. Daly & Co., but prior to any judicial decision an agreement was reached that provided for the dissolution of the existing partnership and the conveyance of the distillery to Mallins.¹⁰ This would almost certainly have marked the end of the road for the Tullamore distillery, but that a new limited company was established in 1903 with a paid up capital of £30,000. The new company, which was owned by Captain Daly, B. S. Mara and E. J. Williams, purchased the distillery for almost £20,000.¹¹

The general picture of the Irish distilling industry in the period 1900 to 1954 is that of a steady decline offset only during the years of the first and second world wars when output was expanded to cater for a large export market. The main reason for the decline was the steep rise in the spirit duty from 11s. p.p.g. in 1908 to £8. 16s. 0d. p.p.g. in 1952. Another reason was the loss of British and American markets to Scotch. This came about for a variety of reasons: failure on the part of the southern Irish pot still distillers to see the demand, both in England and America, for a blended whiskey (i.e. a mix of whiskies, often including pot still and patent whiskey. Patent whiskey is the more economical to produce because in one distillation the patent or continuous still can produce spirit containing between eighty-six per cent and ninety-six per cent alcohol) and the closure of the American market during the years of prohibition, 1920-33. The world-wide depression of the ‘thirties and the Irish government’s restrictions on whiskey exports during the war years prevented any attempt to gain a foothold on the American market until the 1950s. Despite a combined effort in the late ‘fifties on the part of the Irish distillers and support from the Irish Export Board (C.T.T.) progress in the American market was very slow.

Conditions at Tullamore provide a useful indicator of the general state of the industry. Output rose gradually from 50,000 p.g. to 100,000 p.g. in 1910-16, and jumped in 1919 and 1920 to over 200,000 gallons. The fall was no less dramatic and by 1924 output had declined to 20,000 p.g. After a slight rise in 1925 the distillery ceased production.¹² In the same year three out of the seven distilleries in the Free State closed.¹³ Both Kilbeggan and Monasterevan closed in the early ‘twenties, the latter for good.¹⁴ The crisis in the early ‘twenties was almost certainly caused by the severe increases in spirit duty in 1919 and 1920. The duty was advanced from 30s. in 1918 to 50s. in 1919 and 72s. 6d. in 1920. Between 1909 and 1920 the duty had risen from 11s. to 72s. 6d. The closure of the American market and the severe economic climate at home all militated against any early recovery from the duty increases. The recession in the distilling industry also affected the brewing industry, and in turn the agricultural community which supplied the grain. In some years in the ‘twenties barley prices fell below production costs. Between 11921 and 1923 the average price per barrel of malt paid by Arthur Guinness & Son fell by fifty per cent from 58s. 4½d. to 29s. 4d., and seldom rose above 30s. until the mid-thirties.¹⁵ The loss to the farmers of what was looked on as a valuable cash crop must have been severely felt. It was estimated that distillers used 400,000 barrels of Irish barley, or one-third of the available crop in 1919, but only five per cent in the early ‘thirties.¹⁶

By the mid-1930s conditions had again improved and both home consumption and exports were showing an upward swing. The indications are that but for the war this would have been short lived. During the war years and up to 1952 home consumption rose from 494,242 p.g. in 1939 to 770,299 in 1952, while exports increased from 167,239 p.g. to 458,784 in the same years.¹⁷ The spirit duty increases of 1952 in both the U.K. and the Republic of Ireland seriously affected home consumption and export markets. It is doubtful if the distillery plant and buildings at Tullamore could have been maintained, and funds found to finance the capital investment of 1938 when distilling recommenced, but for the financial assistance of D. E. Williams Ltd., which had in the meantime purchased complete control of B. Daly & Co. Ltd. The association of the two companies was also useful in that it facilitated a greater spread of management costs because executives were transferable from one company to the other. Almost certainly the Tullamore distillery would have followed Monasterevan to the wall, but that the senior associate company had the resources to keep a ‘silent’ distillery open for thirteen years (1925-37). Sales of Tullamore whiskey in the 1940s were largely in the U.K. and Irish markets. The letter of neutrality was enforced in 1944 when the department of supplies refused permission to export whiskey to American forces in Northern Ireland.¹⁸ In November of that year the department agreed to allow forty per cent of the current season’s production for export, thirty per cent for customers within the country and thirty per cent for bonding.¹⁹

Up to 1948 the Tullamore distillery produced pot still whiskey only. The conservative southern Irish distillers did not favour the production of patent whiskey, and this business was confined to Northern Ireland. In 1946 the B. Daly board decided on the purchase of a patent still capable of producing 1,200 gallons per hour, and this came into production in 1948.²⁰ In June 1951 it was replaced by a smaller still with a throughput capacity of 600 to 700 gallons per hour.²¹ The purchase of a patent still increased plant capacity by 100 per cent to 0.5 million gallons per year.²² Over the four year period 1948-51 the production of patent whiskey as a percentage of total B. Daly output grew from five to nineteen per cent.²³ Total output peaked in 1949 at almost 300,000 p.g.²⁴ A rise in the spirit duties both in the Republic and the U.K. in 1952, along with a fall in U.K. demand as Scotch came off ration after the war, sent exports tumbling in 1954 to one-third their 1952 level.²⁵ Home consumption also fell.²⁶ At Tullamore production declined to 31,000 p.g. in 1954 pushing up the production costs per gallon to a level unobtainable in the market place and as a result distilling ceased.²⁷ Kilbeggan closed a year earlier and went into receivership in 1958.²⁸ Resumption of distilling at Tullamore has never been ruled out but when B. Daly’s associate company, D. E. Williams Ltd., sold the brand name ‘Tullamore Dew’ to Power’s in 1965 the possibility became more remote.²⁹

Kilbeggan and Tullamore were the only inland distilleries to survive the decline after the First World War. In the above article an attempt has been made to survey the progress of the industry at a local level. Prior to 1900, the industry, while important in Offaly as a source of employment and a market for grain, was unimportant in terms of overall contribution to national output. It was only in the years immediately after the First World War and in the period 1940-52 that the midland distilleries made any significant contribution to national output.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I should like to express my thanks to the board of D. E. Williams Ltd. for permission to use material in their archive. I also wish to thank Dr. David Dickson, Dr. Aidan Clarke, and Mr. Edmund Longworth for their very helpful comments.

Footnotes

1. Ibid., 28 March 1889, 19 January 1899.
2. D. E. W. L. archive: title deeds to B. Daly and Co. Ltd. property, Bernard Daly to the governor of the Bank of Ireland, 30 May 1881 (or see memorial 1881 - 22 -23 in Registry of deeds, Dublin).
3. Valuation Office, Ely Place, Dublin: valuation of town of Tullamore, 1870-83.
4. King’s County Chronicle, 19 May 1887; D. E. W. L. archive: title deeds to B. Daly & Co. Ltd., will of Bernard Daly.
5. Recited in Mary Anne Daly and ors. to J.R. Mallins. 25 Jan. 1902 (Or memorial 1902 - 18 - 61 in Registry of deeds. Dublin).
6. See Mary Anne Daly and ors. to J.R. Mallins, 25 January 1902. deed of release.
7. Mary Anne Daly and ors. to J.R. Mallins. 10 January 1888 (or see memorial 1888 - 4 - 131 in Registry of deeds, Dublin).
8. Ibid.
9. Reassignment, governor of the Bank of Ireland to Mary Anne Daly and ors.. 11 July 1891 (or see memorial 1891 - 41 - 272 in Registry of deeds. Dublin).
10. Mallins v. Daly. 3 July 1901: assignment. Mary Anne Daly and ors. to J.R. Mallins, 25 January 1902 (or see memorial 1902 - 18 - 61 in Registry of deeds, Dublin).
11. Bernard Daly and ors. with Jeremiah Buckley, accountant. 5 August 1903.
12. D. E. W. L. archive: distillery production books, 1909-19. and 1919-54.
13. See the Third annual report of the revenue commisioners of Saorstat Eireann, year ended 31st March 1926. p. 134 (1928) and the Fourth report. . . 1927. p. 136 (1928).
14. John Holmes, ‘Monasterevan distillery’ p. 486; Business records of Locke’s distillery. Kilbeg-gan (N.L.I.. MS 20,276).
15. D. E. W. L. archive: malt production records.
16. See C.E. Reddin, ‘The distilling industry’ in The Licensed Vintner and Grocer (March 1936), p.20.
17. For the export figures see the Twenty-first report of the revenue commissioners….1944, p. 60 (P. no. 6909) and the Thirty-second report... 1955. p.59 (Pr. 3215). Home consumption figures are derived from Irish Whiskey Distillers Association, The story of Irish whiskey (Dublin, 1961), not paginated.
18. D. E.W. L. archive: minute book of B. Daly and Co. Ltd., vol. i (Sept. 1903-Jan. 1945), March 1944.
19. Ibid., 29 November 1944.
20. Minute book of B. Daly and Co. Ltd., vol. ii (Jan. 1945 - July 1947), 22 May 1946; and see B. Daly excise entry papers in transfer box 24 in D. E. W. L. archive
21. Minute book of B. Daly and Co. Ltd., vol. iv (Feb. 1951-Jan. 1956), 9 May 1951.
22. See papers relating to production and plant in B. Daly papers, transfer box 24.
23. Distillery production book, 1919-54.
24. Ibid.
25. Thirty-second report of the revenue commissioners . . . 1955. p.59 (Pr. 3215).
26. The story of Irish whiskey.
27. See copybook marked ‘B. Daly and Co. Ltd., whiskey costings 1953-54, 1954 whiskey’, in transfer box 18, D. E. W. L. archive.
28. N.L.I., MS 20,276. p. I.
29. Papers relating to this sale are ‘on file’ with D. E. W. L.