The New York skyline

On Sunday morning, 24th April 1960, six men got off an Aer Lingus plane at New York's Idlewild airport. One of them was Austin Boyd.

The New York Times reported on their arrival and intentions.

"The visit is frankly and emphatically for the sake of the dear sales curve'...The visitors hope that all America will beprepared to rally around their brands —Dunphy's Original Irish, Gilbey's Crock of Gold, John Jameson's, Murphy's, Old Bushmills, Paddy, Powers Gold Label and Tullamore Dew."

Six men representing eight brands, the members of the Irish Whiskey and Distillers Association had arrived in New York with business on their mind. They had rented a townhouse and advertised a drinks party. Not surprisingly they got 30,000 replies, but they had only 600 places: the whole thing was a farce. The event's purpose was never made clear —were they promoting their individual brands, or Irish whiskey as a whole? What would they do with the 20,400 people, all prospective customers they had excluded from the party? And where was the follow up? Simple: there wasn't any. The whole event now typifies the kind of collective folly that gripped the Irish whiskey industry. Rome was on fire, and everyone was in New York fiddling.

By 1965 exports of Irish whiskey were up, but there was nothing to celebrate; and it had nothing to do with • that sales trip to New York. Exports were up because the Kilbeggan distillery, which had closed its doors in the early 1950s, finally sold off its huge stocks of mature whiskey. At the time of closing, business had been so bad, there was enough unsold whiskey to maintain their current sales for a hundred years.


By the mid-1960s then there was very little to celebrate, but the pointless New York mission by the Irish Whiskey and Distillers Association had at least shown that all the distilleries on the island could cooperate when they needed to. Before too long they would have to do so again, this time to stop themselves from vanishing off the face of the earth altogether.

Written by Peter Mulryan

The text is an excerpt from "Bushmills: 400 Years in the Making" (pp. 107 - 110), written by Peter Mulryan, published 2008 by Appletree Press Ltd.