Story below from the Man About Town (Mourne Observer Newspaper) http://www.mourneobserver.com/Man%20about%20town.htm Fiona. IGP Co. Down Coordinator http://www.rootsweb.com/~nirdow2/ ============ Guinness and the Guiness connection IT seems DNA research has now linked the great Guinness brewing dynasty to the McCartan clan of Kinelarty in rural Down, rather than, has been previously claimed, the high-born Magennis chieftains of Iveagh. Newspaper reports on the discovery - contained in a new biography, "Arthur's Round: The Life and Times of Brewing Legend Arthur Guinness" - have been accompanied by such expressions as "ancestral pretensions," "an act of social climbing," and "humble background." For hundreds of years it has been assumed that brewery founder Arthur Guinness was a descendant of the Iveagh chieftains. Indeed, when he married in 1761 he engraved a silver cup with the armorial bearings of the Magennises - a lion, with the red hand of Ulster and a bear. DNA test carried out at Trinity College Dublin at the behest of the family show the male Y-chromosomes can, instead, be traced to the McCartan clan - and not the clan chiefs but, rather, their followers. Where the McCartans once lived is today the small hamlet of Guiness, a name derived from the Irish Gion Ais, meaning wedge-shaped ridge, thus explaining the roots of the surname. And, of course, as local researchers will tell you, there's a strong connection between the McCartans and the late French President Charles De Gaulle His great-grandmother was one Marie Angelique McCartan.