Cast of House of Guinness: Full Cast and Roles

Netflix turned one of Ireland’s oldest brewing dynasties into a storm of sibling rivalry, factory intrigue, and political tension. Set in 1868 Dublin, House of Guinness pulls together stage-trained performers and screen-proven talent to dramatize the real Guinness family’s succession crisis after the patriarch’s death.

Arthur Guinness: Anthony Boyle · Edward Guinness: Louis Partridge · Anne Guinness: Emily Fairn · Ben Guinness: Fionn O’Shea · Creator: Steven Knight

Four leading names, one brewing empire: here is how the core cast maps to the Guinness family tree.

The pattern is clear: Steven Knight built the ensemble around actors who could anchor period drama weight while carrying the family dynamics that drive the narrative.

Cast of house of guinness season 1

Guinness Family Leads

Anthony Boyle anchors the show as Arthur Guinness, the eldest son who inherits the brewing empire under the shadow of his father’s death. Boyle earned a Laurence Olivier Award and a Tony nomination for originating the role of Scorpius Malfoy in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and he brings that stage-trained intensity to Arthur’s complicated position within the family. Louis Partridge plays Edward, the youngest brother whose trajectory through the series reflects the pressures facing a younger heir in a changing Dublin. Partridge broke through in Netflix’s Enola Holmes opposite Millie Bobby Brown and later appeared in FX’s Pistol and Alfonso Cuarón’s Disclaimer. Emily Fairn portrays Anne, the eldest sibling and only daughter of the Guinness family, in a role that channels the complex position of women in 19th-century Irish property law. Fairn, Liverpool-born, appeared in the historical miniseries Mary & George and the biographical dramedy Saturday Night. Fionn O’Shea plays Benjamin Lee Guinness II, the middle son navigating between his brothers’ ambitions. O’Shea is known from the acclaimed series Normal People opposite Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal, and he appeared in Masters of Air.

Supporting Roles

Beyond the family core, House of Guinness populates its Dublin world with a cast that draws heavily from actors with Game of Thrones and period-drama credentials. James Norton, who earned a BAFTA nomination in 2015 for Happy Valley, plays Sean Rafferty, the warehouse foreman and head of security at the Guinness Brewery. Norton appeared in Little Women, Belle, and Northmen: A Viking Saga. Niamh McCormack, best known for the British teen series Everything Now, portrays Ellen Cochrane, a local Fenian organiser committed to the Irish Republican cause. Seamus O’Hara plays Patrick Cochrane, Ellen’s brother, with previous appearances in Shadow and Bone, The Northman, and Game of Thrones. Danielle Galligan, known from Netflix’s adaptation of Leigh Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone, reportedly plays Lady Olivia Hedges-White, an aristocrat who agrees to marry Arthur, though this role remains unconfirmed in official credits. Jack Gleeson, best known as Joffrey Baratheon in Game of Thrones, reportedly appears as Byron Hedges, a distant cousin and business partner of the Guinness siblings. Michael McElhatton, who played Roose Bolton in Game of Thrones, portrays John Potter, the Guinness family butler, with additional credits in Chernobyl, The Wheel of Time, and Jack Ryan. Dervla Kirwan, an Irish actor who gained prominence in BBC series Goodnight Sweetheart, Ballykissangel, and Hearts and Bones, plays Agnes Guinness, the aunt to the Guinness siblings. Ann Skelly, an Irish actor best-known for performances in The Nevers, The Sandman, and Rose Plays Julie, reportedly plays Adelaide Guinness, a cousin of the Guinness siblings.

The cast list also reportedly includes David Wilmot as Bonnie Champion, a Guinness exporter who runs local illicit businesses, with credits in Anna Karenina, The Crown, and Calvary. Jessica Reynolds, known from Outlander and the biographical dramedy Kneecap, and Michael Colgan, previously in Chernobyl, Say Nothing, and The Regime, also appear in unconfirmed supporting roles.

Cast of house of guinness season 2

Announcements and Rumors

As of the current release window, no official casting announcements for a second season of House of Guinness have been confirmed by Netflix or the production team. The show premiered in late September 2025, and typical renewal timelines for Netflix historical dramas suggest decisions typically arrive four to eight weeks after a season debuts. Industry coverage and fan speculation have suggested potential directions for season 2, including whether the show would continue following the three Guinness brothers or shift focus to a new generation of characters. No casting news, confirmed roles, or rumored additions to the ensemble have emerged from verified sources.

What seems likely is that the production would attempt to retain the core four leads — Boyle, Partridge, Fairn, and O’Shea — given how central their sibling dynamics are to the first season’s structure. Any expansion would probably introduce new characters positioned as threats, allies, or romantic interests to the existing cast.

Cast of House of Guinness Benjamin

Fionn O’Shea plays Benjamin Lee Guinness II, the middle son of the Guinness family in House of Guinness. O’Shea brings credentials from critically acclaimed series including Normal People, where he appeared alongside Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal, and Masters of Air, the recent World War II drama from Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. In the context of the show, Ben occupies the uncomfortable middle position between Arthur’s inheritance anxiety and Edward’s youngest-son restlessness, a dynamic the series uses to explore how the middle child navigates family expectations when the eldest and youngest both have clearer roles.

The character of Benjamin Lee Guinness II does not correspond directly to a single historical figure in the Guinness family tree. The real Guinness dynasty in the 1860s included Edward, the third Earl of Iveagh, whose brother Benjamin Lee Guinness — yes, the names align — was a key figure in the family’s business expansion. The series appears to have compressed or fictionalized family relationships for dramatic purposes, meaning Ben functions more as a composite or inspired figure than a literal historical portrait.

Cast of House of Guinness Sister

Real family ties to cast roles

Emily Fairn portrays Anne Plunket née Guinness, the eldest sibling and only daughter of the Guinness family in the series. Anne’s married name places her in the Plunket family, a real Irish aristocratic lineage with historical ties to the Guinnesses. The show uses this connection to explore how women in 1860s Ireland moved between family loyalty and their own households — a theme that places Anne in direct tension with her brothers over inheritance, property, and influence.

Fairn’s casting brings a Liverpool-born actor with experience in historical material to a role that requires navigating both family politics and the social constraints of the period. Her appearance in Mary & George, which covered a similar dynamic of family ambition and scandal in Tudor England, provides relevant background for the kind of period drama House of Guinness is attempting.

The show positions Anne as a character with her own agenda separate from her brothers’ brewing rivalry, which suggests the series is willing to develop the sister character beyond the traditional supporting role historical family dramas sometimes assign to female characters.

Is the House of Guinness a true story?

House of Guinness is a fictional drama inspired by real events involving the Guinness family in 19th-century Dublin. The show is not a documentary, but it draws from the actual history of the Guinness brewing empire and the family that built it. The core premise — three brothers fighting for control after their father’s death in Dublin in the late 1860s — echoes real patterns in the Guinness succession, where the death of patriarch Benjamin Lee Guinness in 1868 triggered a transition that shaped the company’s future. Edward Guinness, who would become the third Earl of Iveagh, and his brothers did navigate questions about the family’s direction and their roles in the business. The show takes significant creative liberties with specific events, characters, and relationships, compressing and fictionalizing history for dramatic effect. The character of Arthur Guinness is a fictional composite rather than a direct portrait of any single historical figure. The same applies to Edward, Anne, and Benjamin, though their names and general positions within the family structure draw from real patterns. Supporting characters including Sean Rafferty, Ellen Cochrane, and Patrick Cochrane are fictional creations tied to the show’s exploration of Dublin’s political tensions around the Fenian movement.

Director Tom Shankland (known for The Serpent and Waterloo) leads the production with a visual approach that grounds the fictional story in period-accurate Dublin settings, working from scripts by Steven Knight. The show’s relationship to history is best understood as inspired-by rather than based-on — a fictionalized family drama using real names and a real brewing legacy to create narrative stakes that audiences recognize.

Quotes from the production

The drama centers on the three Guinness brothers — Arthur, Edward, and Ben — as well as their sister, Anne, in a story that explores family loyalty, business ambition, and the social changes transforming Dublin in the 1860s.

— Rotten Tomatoes (film and television review platform)

At the center of the cast is the Guinness family: Arthur (Anthony Boyle), Edward (Louis Partridge), Anne (Emily Fairn), and Ben (Fionn O’Shea), bringing the real Guinness dynasty’s drama to life through a mix of established and emerging British-Irish talent.

— Netflix Tudum (official Netflix fan publication)

The implication: the production made a deliberate choice to cast relative newcomers and mid-career actors in the leads rather than pulling exclusively from A-list talent, betting that the family drama and historical setting would carry the show over star power.

Related reading: Cast of Fool Me Once · Cast of the Perfect Couple

The ensemble shines with Anthony Boyle as Arthur and Louis Partridge as Edward, much like the House of Guinness cast breakdown highlights for Steven Knight’s 2025 Netflix drama.

Frequently asked questions

House of Guinness arrived on Netflix with a clear ambition: take one of Ireland’s most recognizable family legacies and fictionalize it into sibling rivalry, factory intrigue, and political tension. The casting strategy backs that ambition by combining stage-trained performers like Anthony Boyle with screen-proven talent like James Norton, building a cast that has the range to sell emotional family drama and period political weight simultaneously. Whether the show earns a second season depends on viewership data Netflix has not released, but the ensemble it assembled for season 1 gives the story every chance to land. Anthony Boyle’s Olivier-winning credentials suggest the show will anchor its dramatic weight on performers capable of carrying the Guinness saga across multiple seasons if renewed.