When Peaky Blinders stormed onto screens, it was electric — a masterclass in charisma and carefully-controlled chaos. Steven Knight turned Birmingham’s gangland into myth. Every frame felt soaked in smoke, blood, and poetry. So when Netflix announced House of Guinness, written by the same man, expectations were sky-high. This was supposed to be Peaky Blinders with porter. Instead, it’s like going from dating Sydney Sweeney to sharing a bed with Charlie Sheen.
Knight has taken one of Ireland’s richest dynasties and poured it through the world’s cheapest filter: the postcard stereotype. The show reeks of artificial shamrocks and fake sentiment. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a souvenir T-shirt reading Kiss Me, I’m Irish.
Take the Fenians, for instance. The 19th-century Irish revolutionaries fought for independence. They smuggled weapons and stirred rebellion. In Knight’s hands, they’re reduced to cartoonish thugs with atrocious accents. History becomes pantomime. These men who risked hanging for freedom now sound like extras from Braveheart on a lunch break. The dialogue is littered with howlers like “bonehead” — a term no Irishman has ever uttered in his life. It’s the same breed of nonsense as “Top of the morning to ya,” a phrase that exists only in the fevered dreams of visiting Americans and Guinness commercials from 1984.
The show’s Dublin feels as authentic as a leprechaun keychain sold at JFK Airport. Every emotional beat lands with the grace of a pint glass to the head. It’s not Ireland — it’s Ireland™.
What makes this so infuriating is that Knight knows better. Peaky Blinders was tight, menacing, and meticulously crafted. Tommy Shelby was Hamlet with a razor blade. The writing sliced through cliché. House of Guinness does the opposite. It’s built entirely from them. The characters aren’t people, they’re PowerPoint slides: “Strong-willed woman,” “idealistic heir,” “simmering revolutionary.” They explain themselves like tour guides, lecturing us about themes instead of living them.
Watching a Victorian brewer fret about climate change is like seeing a Viking apply sunscreen.
The show can’t decide what it wants to be. Is it a family saga? A business drama? A political parable? A romance wrapped in revolution? It’s all of them and none of them — a genre smoothie that leaves you feeling vomitous.
Then come the woke history lessons. One character in 1890s Dublin is shown testing river water for pollution — as if Greenpeace had a branch office in the GPO. Another bangs on about “social housing reform,” apparently fresh from a TED Talk in Silicon Valley. These moments are absolutely absurd. Watching a Victorian brewer fret about climate change is like seeing a Viking apply sunscreen.
What stings most is the wasted potential. The Guinness story has everything — power, piety, profit, and politics. Arthur Guinness himself was a Protestant unionist in a Catholic country, his fortune built in a time of famine and empire. His heirs helped shape Dublin’s skyline and its very soul. Done right, it could have been Succession meets The Wind That Shakes the Barley. Done wrong, well, we got this.
The visuals, to be fair, are gorgeous. The costumes are impressive, the sets dazzle, and every frame looks expensive. But it’s lipstick on a pig, boredom with Botox. Knight, once a maestro of malevolence, now directs like a man stuck on autopilot. It’s as if Michelangelo were handed crayons and told to draw shamrocks.
The Guardian and other critics have been fawning, calling it “lush,” “epic,” and “absorbing.” But among actual Irish viewers — the people who can tell the difference between authenticity and affectation — it’s left a bitter aftertaste. Because we’ve seen this before. We’re always the same creatures on screen. The pious drunk, the whimsical peasant, the fiery redhead with a secret, or the brooding republican muttering in riddles about “the old country.” In Far and Away, we were naïve dreamers chasing land. In P.S. I Love You, we were sentimental ghosts teaching Americans to feel. In Wild Mountain Thyme, we were lunatics in tweed, arguing about donkeys.
We’re tired of being everyone’s lucky charm. We’re tired of being played by actors who pronounce “Dublin” like “Doo-blin.” And we’re tired of seeing our history turned into folklore fit for binge-watching tourists.
So, cheers to House of Guinness — a show that proves even a master like Knight can pull a pint without a head, the televisual equivalent of green beer on St. Patrick’s Day: all foam, no flavor.
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