The Phoenix Park Distillery has the distinction of being the only Irish distillery ever built and owned by a Scottish company, the Distillers’ Company Limited. The original buildings had been a spinning mill and were converted in 1878 to a distillery. The Phoenix Park was at the time the most extensive public park in the United Kingdom, (it is still the largest enclosed park in Europe) and the new distillery adopted as its emblem, the 50ft Corinthian pillar surmounted with a figure of a Phoenix in her burning nest, erected in the Park in 1747 and still there today. The distillery was located on the edge of the Park, in the small and quaint village of Chapelizod (now a part of Dublin), four miles outside Dublin city centre, along the banks of the river Liffey, which Barnard described as 'a beautiful clear stream and quite unlike the Liffey at Dublin City'. Phoenix Park was the smallest of all the distilleries owned by DCL at the time, yet thanks to the ingenious installation of labour saving machinery and devices, was its most modern and efficient. Remarkably, there was no steam power on the premises, all the motive power being supplied by a huge water-wheel, spanning the width of the river Liffey. Measuring 70 feet in breadth and 18 feet in diameter, it was said to be the largest in the United Kingdom. The water-wheel even supplied the motive power for an Ellwell-Parker dynamo, which supplied lights for the newly installed incandescent lamps, extremely modern appliances for the time, which critically, reduced the risk of fire in the distillery. The distillery in 1886 employed 60 men and had an annual output of 350,000 gallons, much less than all the other Dublin distilleries, such as John Jameson or George Roe. It would appear to have been a successful concern and with the financial backing of DCL, should have survived longer than it did. However, DCL decided to close the distillery in 1921, due to the political upheaval in Ireland at the time and the commercial uncertainties which came with Ireland’s new found independence from Britain. The closure of Chapelizod Distillery also had a major impact on another Irishman, whose name is synonymous with Dublin. John Joyce, James Joyce’s father, was persuaded by a friend of his, Henry Alleyn, to buy £500 worth of shares in the distillery. John Joyce was then appointed secretary of the company, but was left bankrupt after its failure. In “Finnegan’s Wake”, James Joyce referred to ‘the still that was a mill’ and in his work “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man”, published in 1916, he referred to his father as ‘a medical student, an oarsman, a tenor, an amateur actor, a shouting politician, a small landlord, a small investor, a drinker, a good fellow, a storyteller, somebody’s secretary, something in a distillery, a tax gatherer, a bankrupt and, at present, a praiser of his own past.’ Through his father’s employment, James Joyce became very familiar with the village of Chapelizod and it featured in both his works “Finnegan’s Wake” and “Dubliners”. James Joyce obviously was not completely turned off whiskey by his father’s misadventures – he was reputed to be so proud to share his initials with John Jameson that he had his wallet engraved with the initials “JJ” in the same typeface as the JJ logo and wrote 'the light music of whiskey falling into a glass - an agreeable interlude'.