How exactly does one get a 9,000 year lease on a property? The Independent:
The seeds of the Guinness brewery were sewn in 1752 when a young Arthur was left £100 by his godfather, the Archbishop of Cashel, Dr Arthur Price. Guinness's father was a land steward on the Archbishop's estate and helped brew beer for the workers. Arthur and his brother ploughed the cash into a brewery in Leixlip, County Kildare in 1756. Three years later, in 1759, a 34-year-old Arthur upped sticks and took a 9,000-year lease on a dilapidated brewery in St James's Gate, Dublin, in order to try his hand at porter, a brew involving roasted barley that turned the drink black and so called after the porters who drank it.
