The pace of mergers and acquisitions amongst Irish brewing firms was relentless during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This chart shows the surviving firms – principally the multinational Heineken, Molson Coors and Diageo. The demise of the Dublin group of Watkin, Jameson, Pim & Co and the Ulster brewing facility of Bass Charrington demonstrates how brewery scale and industrialisation drove consolidation and concentration. There are many factors behind the process represented in this diagram. Mergers usually resulted in rationalisations and closures. Less efficient or poorly located breweries were closed.

(Sources: Lynch & Vaizey, 1960; Ó Drisceoil & Ó Drisceoil, 1997, 2015; Bielenberg, 1998; Denisson & MacDonagh, 1998, Brewery History Society, 2022)