House of Guinness' same-sex relationships and real history explored

Netflix's gritty period drama House of Guinness has recently arrived, featuring a stellar cast and breathtaking settings, reports the Irish Mirror.

Countless viewers have found themselves wondering how much of the storyline crafted by Peaky Blinders mastermind Steven Knight is pure imagination and how much draws from actual events, particularly after the Guinness dynasty slammed the series and every episode opened with a warning stating the "fiction" was rooted in real happenings.

Plenty are intrigued by eldest Guinness heir Arthur Guinness 1st Baron Ardilaun (portrayed by Anthony Boyle), who is shown as homosexual in the programme with numerous enemies attempting to reveal his sexuality to undermine the Guinness dynasty and grab control.

A direct descendant of the Guinness clan delivered a damning critique of the eight-episode series and branded the portrayal of Arthur's homosexual relationships as "invented".

However, writer Joe Joyce, who penned the 2009 publication The Guinnesses: The Untold Story of Ireland's Most Successful Family, suggested Arthur was "probably gay".

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Writing for the Irish Times, Joyce noted: "Lord Ardilaun had an unconventional marriage" to Olivia Hedges-White (Danielle Galligan). Whilst the verdict remains unclear regarding House of Guinness' depiction of Arthur, what about genuine homosexual relationships during this period?

Historian and writer Dr Averill Earls exclusively revealed to Reach Screen Time that "same-sex desiring men were occasionally arrested and tried for their relationships with other men". However, they paid a steep cost for their romance if caught, just like in Britain, with the harshest punishment being life imprisonment for Irish men found guilty of sodomy.

Meanwhile, those men convicted of attempted sodomy faced jail terms of 10 years or more.

Furthermore, some of the Irish men sentenced between the 1820s to 1870s were shipped off to other penal colonies.

Dr Earls went on to say: "But there generally weren't that many trials in Ireland for sodomy - there were more in Britain by comparison. "However, the Irish Nationalist newspapers used sodomy to undermine British rule in Ireland - newspapers regularly printed that sodomy was a "crime no Irishman would be guilty of", and effectively blamed the British for importing the "sin" into Ireland.

"A prime example of this revolved around the nationalist newspaper United Ireland effectively breaking the story of the Dublin Castle Scandal in 1884.

"That said, if the newsmen hadn't been trying to cast aspersions at the British officials in Dublin, men like Gustavus Cornwall and James Ellis French likely would've gone on with their sexual and romantic same-sex relationships relatively unscathed."

Dr Earls, who has penned the book Love in the Lav: A Social Biography of Same-Sex Desire in Ireland, 1922-1972, added: "Social position, power, and money went a long way in Ireland as elsewhere. Scandal was the greater potential threat."

The Dublin Scandal of 1884 embroiled several top brass in the Dublin Castle administration, including Gustavus Cornwall, secretary of the General Post Office, and James Ellis French, Royal Irish Constabulary Director of Detectives.

The scandal was sparked by two MPs and published in the United Ireland Newspaper as a shocking exposé. However, the reports surrounding the scandal illuminated the queer community in the 1880s, including drag parties and rendezvous at the Botanic Gardens - a narrative that is portrayed in House of Guinness.

While the Netflix series has taken some artistic licence with the story and its characters, it appears that the depiction of same-sex romances is largely spot-on, particularly the looming threat of scandal which would have dealt a severe blow to influential families like the Guinnesses if it had been exposed.

House of Guinness is streaming on Netflix now