The founder of the Guinness brewery in St James's Gate set up the successful company in 1759 with �100 he had received in inheritance money.

The brewery was almost immediately a success, going on to become one of the biggest employers in Dublin and providing care and support for its 50,000 employees.

However Arthur also faced a number of tragedies in his personal life. Ten out of his 21 children died . . .and he did not live long enough to see three of his grandchildren become alcoholics.

In more recent times the family has endured a series of tragic deaths, including drugs overdoses, suicide and mysterious disappearances, leading to suggestions there may be a family curse.

Talk of a Guinness curse began after Walter Guinness, the first Lord Moyne, was assassinated in Egypt in 1944. Three members of the family were killed in car crashes in the 1960s and the husband of Lady Brigid Guinness mysteriously drowned in the Rhine river in the same decade.

In 1978, Lady Henrietta Guinness took her own life by jumping off a bridge. Eight years later, Olivia Channon, another Guinness heir, was found dead of a drugs overdose in Oxford. Also that year, the wife of banker John Guinness was kidnapped and held to ransom.

In 2005, Olivia Channon's brotherin-law died from an overdose of heroin, cocaine and alcohol.

The family cut their links with the brewery in 1992 after the death of the third Earl of Iveagh.