“ The export trade soon assumed huge proportions; the brewery was continually enlarged, and when in 1855 his father died, Benjamin Lee Guinness, who in 1851 was elected first lord mayor of Dublin, found himself sole proprietor of the business and the richest man in Ireland. Between 1860 and 1865 he devoted a portion of this wealth to the restoration of St Patrick’s cathedral, Dublin. ”

“ Prior to that date the trade in Guinness’s porter and stout had been confined to Ireland, but Benjamin Lee Guinness at once established agencies in the United Kingdom, on the continent, in the British colonies and in America. ”