Save The Beamish Site

Opened on April 02, 2009 | Contact Petition Author

The Beamish site is in the heart of historical Cork. We risk losing it to unsympathetic development. Only the public can stop its disposal for commercial development. Sign now to support: - keeping the historic counting-house, not just its facade - continuing the 400-year-old brewing tradition on the site - developing a tourist-trail and amenity based at the Beamish site. Please forward this to your address-book. Some background to the petition: The Beamish & Crawford site, bottling plant and all associated business were bought by Heineken in 2008, amid much public outcry (there are many blogs and groups on the Internet where this has been debated at length). Heineken has since announced that production of Beamish will be transferred from its home of South Main Street, and moved to the Heineken (previously Murphys) plant on Leitrim Street; (indeed most pubs in Cork are already out of kegs of 'original' Beamish and now onto 'new' Beamish kegs). This has led to a chain of events where the likely outcomes are: - increased financial gain for a corporation that announced profits of over 1 billion euro last year; - further brewery jobs lost in the city; - a missed opportunity to maintain and enhance the cultural capital of Cork, and - a lot more worry about competition and the future of Cork stout. Reluctantly accepting that our beloved Beamish stout will cease to be produced in its traditional home, this is a petition concerning the future of the brewery site, not past decisions. Soon Heineken will cease to have any use for the South Main Street site, and we can only conclude that they will be looking to sell it. Indeed there is a lot of concern that plans for getting rid of the site are far more advanced than they say. This is a petition to pre-emptively show the Heineken Corporation, Cork City Council and all relevant parties that the public (be they Beamish drinkers, or not) want to see that the traditional home of Beamish & Crawford is kept and designated as a permanent cultural and tourism centre for the city, with a micro brewery kept on site. This is Cork City's last chance to keep a direct hold on a massive part of our history, one which I am not best to write upon. This is also an opportunity to create something like St James Gate in Dublin or the Midleton Distillery in Midleton; two very popular and successful tourist attractions which certainly help push the 'Irish' brand abroad. Please sign this petition, and forward it to and encourage anyone else you know who might be interested. There are local elections coming up in a few months, and if we make this a current issue on that agenda we might save ourselves a lot of heartbreak. Ronan Leonard n.b. - This is on behalf of The Save Beamish Site Campaign