Business Daily meets: Ned Guinness
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 26 December 2025
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
With 250 years of brewing history behind his family, Arthur Edward Guinness was discouraged from taking on the responsibility that the men of his family had for centuries.
Now Ned, or Lord Iveagh, grows crops, brews beer and is in pursuit of being able to pour the perfect pint in one of the two pubs he owns in the rural east of England.
He tells Leanna Byrne about the extraordinary family history he sees as his legacy, and talks about how the famous brewery at St James's Gate in Dublin, Ireland became one of the most successful in the world.
Presenter: Leanna Byrne Producer: Hannah Bewley
(Image: Ned Guinness, 4th Earl of Iveagh, attends the "House Of Guinness" London Premiere at Picturehouse Central on 23 September 2025 in London, England. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:08.5 | Hello, welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:12.6 | I'm Leanna Byrne. |
| 0:13.6 | Today, we meet the head of a famous family dynasty, |
| 0:17.2 | one of the wealthiest in the world. |
| 0:20.0 | Edward, it is you who has taken a success and turned it into a miracle. |
| 0:26.6 | An international leviathan, turning water, hops and barley into gold. |
| 0:33.6 | That's Sir Arthur Guinness to his younger brother Edward in the Netflix series House of Guinness, set in the 19th century, which aired earlier this year. |
| 0:43.6 | It tells the story of the Stout's Domination through the grandsons of the original founder who started the business in 1759. |
| 0:52.8 | Their descendants still bear the name of the distinctive black Irish drink and |
| 0:56.5 | today's generation is the first not to have an active management role in the company for 250 years. |
| 1:03.3 | They have, however, inherited hundreds of millions of dollars with the current head of the family, |
| 1:09.0 | Lord Iver, Ned, to his friends, responsible for managing that legacy. |
| 1:14.2 | So how have water, hops, barley and gold shaped the family? |
| 1:18.6 | The fourth Earl of Iver, or Ned Guinness, is my guest on today's Business Daily. |
| 1:27.7 | What is it like to be Lord Ivy? |
| 1:30.7 | You know, what is it like to manage the money, the land and the legacy all at once? |
| 1:35.4 | Firstly, I suppose, you know, it's just normal because that's how I was brought up. |
| 1:40.8 | And my papa was a very wonderful man. |
| 1:43.7 | He imparted lots of knowledge and wisdom as to |
| 1:46.9 | history and stories. It sort of is life, life as I know it. Now, were you brought up with any |
| 1:54.7 | expectations that you would take on the business or at least the stewardship of the estate and the |
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