Roe & Co., Distillers. George Roe's
sons Henry and George Jr. took over the company in 1862, and by 1887 it
had been built into the largest distillery in Europe. At that time the
Thomas Street Distillery covered seventeen acres, and Geo. Roe &
Co., Distillers were producing two million gallons of whiskey annually.
Roe whiskey had a large and important export to the United States,
Canada, and Australia.

During this heyday of Geo. Roe & Co., Henry Roe applied a
substantial portion of the Roe distillery wealth to the restoration of
Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, and the building of the attached Synod
Hall (today housing the tourist attraction, Dublina). Between 1871 and
1878, he donated the astronomical sum of 220,000 to 250,000 pounds
(equivalent today to approximately 25,000,000 U.S. dollars). Following
its restoration, a new thoroughfare was cut in thevicinity of Christ
Church, and although it was named "Lord Edmund Street", a
local witticism at the time was "Roe Row".

In 1889 Geo. Roe & Co., Distillers, joined William Jameson &
Co. and the Dublin Whiskey Distillery (better known as D.W.D.) to form a
trading unit called the Dublin Distilling Company, LTD. Each distillery
continued to market its own whiskey under its own name and mark.

The late 19th and early 20th centuries defined a very difficult period
for the whiskey industry in Ireland, and the Roe distillery was no
exception. Competition from Scottish blended whiskies, prohibition in
the United States, and social and economic instabilities in Ireland
caused many distilleries to fail. By 1926 Geo. Roe & Co., Distillers
and its two partners had ceased producing whiskey, although they still
possessed large quantities of unsold stock in storage. In