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Paper short abstract

This paper will use thick description to examine the ‘double pour ritual’ of a pint of Draught Guinness. It will unpack the everyday ‘lore’ that surrounds the ritual and how that ritual offers a boundary marker of a national identity, consumed within the idea of the Irish pub.

Paper long abstract

In an apparently increasingly polarised world, taking an anthropological approach to the everyday, grounded, nature of nationalism is important. This paper looks at the strange story of a ritual of mass consumption, central to a national identity, underpinned by ideas of authenticity and heritage, that is facilitated by a multinational company on a global scale. There are few, if any, brands so closely associated with an ethno-national identity than the brand of Guinness is with Irishness. My argument will take an ethnographic piece of thick description to examine what I will call the ‘double pour ritual’ of a pint of Draught Guinness. It will examine the everyday ‘lore’ that surrounds the ritual, the demarcation of Irishness, how the ritual is constructed in the market place, and consumed within the idea of the Irish ‘heritage’ pub. Despite the global nature of this ritual performance of Irishness, especially on St Patrick's Day, and the almost symbiotic relationship with the Irish State, the history or ‘heritage’ or the ‘tradition’ reveals much about the forces of capitalist consumption. The Guinness family were a Protestant, landed family that favoured Ireland remaining in the United Kingdom. The brand is owned by Diageo, a multi-national company based in London, which in 2024 had a global net profit of $2.5 billion. In addition, the stout beer does not remain the same product over time. This ritual suggests the powerful performative nature of grounded nationalism, ideas of historical continuity and their relation to the consumption of national identity.