“Yes I did down the Guinness, seven or eight times actually — of course, I’m Irish!” says Niamh McCormack, breakout star of House of Guinness, whose character has a memorable scene where she takes a drink from an adversary and necks it in one. “It was Guinness 0.0, although I definitely had a placebo effect because I felt tipsy afterwards.”
McCormack, 24, plays Ellen Cochrane, an Irish Republican Brotherhood leader, in Steven Knight’s Netflix series about the Guinness dynasty. It follows what happens after Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness, the head of the brewing family, dies in 1868 — leaving his children to pick up the pieces. Dubbed the “stout Succession”, it is also set against the politically charged backdrop of Irish rebellion, with the Guinnesses on the Unionist side. Ellen becomes embroiled in the Guinness family drama, and in McCormack’s hands is a charismatic, dangerous figure.
