The unbelievable night ‘burning flood' river of whiskey ran through Dublin & claimed 13 lives – but not from flames

The Irish Sun

19-07-2025

WILLIAM Cheetham was walking the streets of Dublin on a warm June night in 1875 when word spread of "burning flood" in the Liberties - within an hour he would be staggering drunk, and the next morning pronounced dead.
The 18-year-old is one of 13 known casualties of the Great
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The Great Dublin Whiskey Fire of 1875 broke out on June 18
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The fire indirectly claimed the lives of at least 13 people
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Fire service historian and author Las Fallon believes the tragedy claimed even more lives
Retired Dublin firefighter Las Fallon described the devastating event as "both a fire and a flood" - but a fledgling fire service had the ingenious idea to utilise manure to battle the blaze.
The fire, which started on the evening of June 18, 1875, is believed to have begun in Malone's Bonded Storehouse on Chamber Street, where some 5,000 barrels of whiskey and spirits were being stored before bottling.
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An excise officer was the last person in the storehouse that day, locking up without incident by 4.45pm.
At 8pm, however, the alarm had been raised that a fire had started in the building.
Las, a retired member of
He said: "The first anyone knew of the fire is when it pushed through the roof of the warehouse; that's a well-developed fire; that's a fire that's been building up and building up and building up.
"There was no indication of this. Nobody was smelling smoke as they went around and looking to see if there was a glow in the window or something."
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He further explained: "There's an inferno within the building. The barrels, of course, are bursting; they're adding more fuel to the fire.
"Some of them are exploding and actually been thrown clear of the building. And most of those are landing on the streets outside and bursting open, and again, just adding to the fire out there.
"The burning whiskey is starting to flow out of the building, and the extraordinary thing about this fire is that it's both a fire and a flood. It's a burning flood."
As the fire intensified, the whiskey began to flow down Ardee Street, onto Chamber Street, and then onto Mill Street.
A FLOOD OF FIRE
At this stage, the fire brigade had been alerted, with reports of strange blue flame being spotted from the roof of the storehouse.
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Las explained: "People talk about the flames on the roofs, where the extraordinary thing about it was the blue flame. That's alcohol burning, you know, like Christmas pudding with the brandy on it."
Arriving on the scene, Dublin Fire Brigade - founded only 13 years prior and comprising only 25 men - attempted to contain the rapidly spreading flood of burning whiskey.
Quickly, they realised they couldn't extinguish the flames with water from their hand-pumped engines as the
CUNNING PLAN
Luckily, the DFB's Chief Officer Captain James Ingram, had a cunning, albeit disgusting, plan to stop the blaze.
At first, Ingram had his men and a number of requisitioned
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When this failed to slow the flow, Ingram had his men seek out manure depots scattered across the city.
At the time, Dublin was a horse-drawn city, and as a result, large areas were needed to store the massive amounts of manure produced each day.
Ingram believed this manure could be used to stop the spread of the fire by stacking it throughout the streets in the form of makeshift barricades.
DISGUSTING MEASURES
While mainly animal manure was used, human waste gathered from pits outside tenant flats and animal products from tanneries in the area were also used to bolster the disgusting barricades.
While unsavoury, the barricades did succeed in containing the fire by slowing the flow of whiskey and allowing the alcohol to burn off safely into the air.
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While Ingram and his men fought to contain the fire, however, an even stranger spectacle was taking place in the surrounding streets.
Since the fire had started, people had been pouring into the Liberties - in fact, 150 police officers had been deployed to tackle the crowd.
"The burning whiskey is starting to flow out of the building, and the extraordinary thing about this fire is that it's both a fire and a flood. It's a burning flood."
Las Fallon
Fire Service Historian
Dublin, at the time, was a very poor city. Many residents lived difficult lives with little in the way of entertainment.
The bright blue fire produced colour and spectacle, which drew spectators in from all over the city.
And it didn't take long for these spectators to realise what was now flowing down the streets in large quantities.
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People immediately began to drink the whiskey - getting down on their hands and knees and using hats and shoes to scoop up the spirits.
DIRTY DRINK
The whiskey, however, was undiluted and not fit for human consumption.
It was also flowing through human and animal waste, as well as dirty street gutters.
Unsurprisingly, people immediately began to get sick.
Due to the higher strength proof of the whiskey, many also quickly became ludicrously drunk.
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This year marks the 150th anniversary of the great Dublin whiskey fire
Credit: Las Fallon
Las mentions one instance where attendees of a wake left to enjoy the free drink.
He said: "On Chamber Street, there was a wake taking place, and the corpse was laid out, and the family and friends were there, and the people there grabbed the corpse to preserve it from the fire.
"They ran off up the street, but apparently what they did with him is they got him kind of to a safe distance and propped him up in a doorway when they realised that the streets, you know, despite the danger, were flowing with streams of whiskey."
BARNYARD MADNESS
He also explained that the area held a lot of livestock, which only added to the chaos and confusion.
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He said: "There were a lot of stables in the area; people went into the stables and freed the horses naturally enough, you know, a humanitarian thing to do, but a lot of the horses ended up running into the stream and started to get burned on their hoofs, so they're stampeding around the place and they can't get out of it no matter where they go.
"A lot of people kept pigs, so there's a lot of pigs running around the street. Pigs are squealing running around, horses are squealing, there's donkeys, there's people running with all kinds of domestic animals."
He added: "There are great images of people running down the street trying to carry a goat under the one arm and a couple of chickens under the other."
LOST COST
Despite all this, Ingram and his crew extraordinarily had the fire under control by 1.30am the next morning.
In total, adjusting for inflation, over €6million in whiskey is estimated to have been lost in the fire.
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Much of the Liberties was also destroyed, including many businesses and poor tenement buildings.
Given the scale and intensity of the fire, however, it is surprising that more wasn't destroyed and that nobody was killed as a direct result of the flames.
For their efforts, Ingram and his men received little in the way of thanks.
THE COVER UP
Las explained: "A brilliant bit of firefighting, brilliant bit of thinking, and very progressive for its day, but absolutely not going to make its way into a Victorian newspaper. Imagine. What did they spread? How did they stop it?"
The fire, which was scrupulously mocked in foreign papers, played into unfavourable stereotypes of the Irish and threatened future business and investment in the city.
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As a result, by the time the fire had been extinguished the following morning, a concerted effort was underway by the city council to downplay the events and kill the story.
While no one is known to have directly died in the fire, several people did die in the following days as a result of the polluted whiskey.
Two dozen people were reported to be hospitalised due to alcohol poisoning. And 13 of these - including Cheetham - later died as a result.
"You know, there are great images of people running down the street, you know, trying to carry a goat on the one arm and a couple of chickens under the other."
Las Fallon
Fire Service Historian
And Las believes that it is likely that even more people died.
He said: "A lot of the people who died, in my estimation, died in the days afterwards when the cover-up had started. And they're dying of things like gastroenteritis. You know, it's a direct result of the drink.
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"I mean the amount of people in the hospital unconscious from drinking, that didn't get up the next morning.
"You know, a certain number would have contracted things like gastro, which would be the one to scream out as a big killer there.
"Especially in the days before antibiotics or any form of effective treatment for it. So the people are dying, but the majority are dying at a time that the city has decided that this didn't happen."
A FORGOTTEN FIRE
The people who died following the fire were largely forgotten, if not outwardly mocked at the time.
At a meeting following the fire, Lord Mayor Peter Paul McSwiney is quoted as saying: "On inquiry, I was happy to learn that no life was lost during the great conflagration."
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Even Ingram, the man who stopped the fire and helped create the Dublin Fire Brigade, was largely overlooked, being buried in an unmarked grave in Mount Jerome Cemetery.
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Retired firefighter Las Fallon wants James Ingram to be honoured
Currently, Las is attempting to commission a plaque for Ingram at the old fire brigade headquarters on Taylor Street. So far, his request has been met by delays.
This year marks the 150th anniversary of the Great Dublin Whiskey Fire, a remarkable story of ingenuity, tragedy, whiskey and excrement.
Due to both time and interference, however, little evidence of the fire remains and most people, even those from the Liberties area, are unaware of the fascinating story.
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The few rumours which do persist often say little of the men who fought bravely to stop fire, and even less of the people, like William Cheetham, who lost their lives in the aftermath.
The Great Liberties Whiskey Fire by Las Fallon is available in good bookstores now.
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Las Fallon's The Great Liberties Whiskey Fire tells the story of the blaze