{"id":428240,"date":"2026-05-02T06:14:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T06:14:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/428240\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T06:14:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T06:14:20","slug":"derelict-guinness-warehouse-in-dublin-has-become-irelands-biggest-start-up-campus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/428240\/","title":{"rendered":"Derelict Guinness warehouse in Dublin has become Ireland\u2019s biggest start-up campus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Facility is a welcome addition to efforts aimed at reviving the once-thriving then forgotten Liberties\n<\/p>\n

Local resident Thomas Brunkard, who has been a community representative and board member of the Guinness Enterprise Centre (GEC) for 25 years, said: \u201cI\u2019m in my 80s now, and I remember more than people think I do.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at Dublin 8 historically, it was the main harbour. Barley would come from down the country into a number of distilleries and breweries \u2013 it was the main industrial part of the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen it fell into disuse, but I\u2019m old enough to remember the barges on the canal and the drawbridge that used to be here. Now with these developments, I think Dublin 8 is going back to its roots.\u201d<\/p>\n

Supported by Dublin City Council (DCC), Guinness owner Diageo and Enterprise Ireland, GEC has more than 700 employees working out of the former warehouse, now converted into Dublin\u2019s biggest start-up campus.<\/p>\n

The centre has been converted into a modern building sprawling across 100,000 square feet and providing funding, incubation and support for start-ups.<\/p>\n

GEC chairman David Varian said: \u201cBack when I joined Diageo in 1998, there was no storehouse here. This building was in ruins and there was no footfall at all.<\/p>\n

\"GEC<\/p>\n

GEC chairman David Varian. Photo: Gareth Chaney<\/p>\n

\u201cWe moved from a shell of a building in a dark and dismal part of Dublin to what you see now, with 700 people from all over the world coming in every day and living here. It creates a very different buzz around a place where we had tumbleweed rolling down the roads.\u201d<\/p>\n

The developments in the area need to match up with education and social support, said Mr Brunkard, who is a founding member of Fountain Resource Group, a child and youth service organisation working with young people in Dublin\u2019s south-west inner city.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore Fountain Group was set up, we held a survey in the area and found only 10pc of the people in some of the flats complexes were employed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEducation is the only way to improve people\u2019s lot in life. Over the years, we have set up schools and creches, but we still have a long way to go with the drug problem, right-wingers and people trying to terrorise the area.<\/p>\n

The idea is to build a quarter with hotels, office, retail and event spaces. The GEC fits right into that<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, with these developments, quite a lot of people have moved in to the area and homes are going up in price in places like Kilmainham. That doesn\u2019t necessarily help people indigenous to the area.\u201d<\/p>\n

The GEC forms a major part of Dublin 8\u2019s Guinness Quarter, where DCC has granted permission for 336 residential buildings that will include retail spaces, restaurants and a market hall.<\/p>\n

The plans will result in Guinness \u201copening the gates\u201d to the public, Mr Varian said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe brewery was divided into two halves, with James\u2019s Street down the middle,\u201d he said. \u201cOver the years, the main production site has moved and freed up 12 acres of land that used to be impenetrable to anyone but those who were working here.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt used to be cut off from the public, but now the plan is to open the gates with this. The idea is to build a quarter with hotels, office, retail and event spaces. The GEC fits right into that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Deirdre<\/p>\n

Deirdre McCarthy established a start-up to help women with their finances<\/p>\n

For Deirdre McCarthy, founder of an enterprise incubated at GEC, working in Dublin 8 has been an opportunity to support people in the area.<\/p>\n

Her company, Flit, offers personal finance information to women living in the area and in Wicklow and Carlow.<\/p>\n

\u201cGEC is rooted in the community, and as a founder it has helped me connect with people outside the start-up bubble,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWorking in Dublin 8 has been important because it\u2019s populous and we have women and families here who will benefit from understanding their rights and how finance works.<\/p>\n

\u201cOften, people who are on lower incomes are squeezed more for money because they think they have no levers of control on their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flit organises peer groups and workshops for local women who might struggle to make ends meet.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re running a crowdfunding event for a series of workshops in Dublin 8 about women and their past money stories,\u201d Ms McCarthy said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving a peer group works out for women because they can be open. It\u2019s women who might have made a misstep with money, often through a relationship, and they end up blaming themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to reframe that and trying to get women here from judging themselves too harshly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Facility is a welcome addition to efforts aimed at reviving the once-thriving then forgotten Liberties Local resident Thomas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9604,6424,97458,604,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-428240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-azmia-riaz","tag-diageo","tag-enterprise-ireland-government-agency","tag-guinness","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}