What's In A Name?
When starting a new business there are a lot of things that need to be planned out, ranging from the business plan to branding / marketing.
Very early on we knew we wanted to have a name that was very specific to our location, Tallaght, so after lots of brainstorming sessions, chats and debates, we eventually agreed on a name that we believed would fit our needs, Dodder Valley Brewing.
We came up with the name Dodder Valley Brewing for a few reasons but it all boils down to the fact that the Dodder river is one of the main rivers in Dublin, starting at Kippure in the Wicklow Mountains before passing through Tallaght and then joining up with the River Liffey in the capital.
Due to it's 6km length that passes through Tallaght, this has played a large part in the history of Tallaght and to this day is enjoyed both with it's wild fish and the adjacent Dodder Valley Park with it's natural conservation value.
Like many businesses before us our name changed, just like Google was originally called BackRub, or others we are more familiar with on this isle like Lansdowne Road changing it's name to the Aviva Stadium or The Point becoming the Three Arena, we got to a point where we knew something just wasn't quite right and eventually realising the name we should have had from the beginning, Priory Brewing.
Cart Before The Horse
The time came where we were ready to brew our first commercial batch and everything seemed to be going right, brew day went well, it was now time to wait for fermentation to finish.
Eventually it got to the stage where we were tasting the beer before packaging and something just wasn't right, this was not the same quality of the smaller batches we were producing and we just didn't feel comfortable releasing the beer that didn't meet our expectations, the beer was not fit for release in our eyes.
This brought with it some heated words and eventually after saying a few words he regretted, John whispered the words, 'forgive us our sins'. This became our lightbulb moment, the minute he said those words he then followed it up with, 'this is our Original Sin', the christian belief that all humans are born in a state of sin since Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit.
From this moment on we knew this beer would be now known as Original Sin, but this then lead to the conversation of our brewery name and was this the right name?
The History Books
Once we decided our beer was to be called Original Sin this led us to the conclusion that the name Dodder Valley Brewing wasn't the right name for us, we were aware of another important part of the history of Tallaght, the history of The Priory.
Ask pretty much any person from Tallaght if they are familiar with the Priory and the answer
will be a resounding yes, but not everybody will have known the full extent of its history.
Tallaght is one of Ireland's most important monastic centres, so much so that early monastic scribes refer to Tallaght as ‘Partas Eireann’ or Ireland’s Garden of Eden and it was here that the Archbishops of Dublin had their summer residences for many hundreds of years.
The Archbishop of Dublin established this summer palace, it was here that Archbishop Hoadley had a small brewery and hop garden on the same site that is now known locally as The Priory.
Since then, there hasn't been a brewery in Tallaght Village and now 250 years later we, Priory Brewing are again producing hand-crafted local beer in the heart of Tallaght Village.
So there you have it, this is the story of Priory Brewing, where the name originates from and how we got to the stage where we realised our true identity.
For more stories like this, further insights into our brewery, our beers and everything else going on, check back weekly, so give us a like on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to stay up to date.
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