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Dublin Whiskey Fire

en.wikipedia.org

11–20 of 108 posts

Re: Dublin Whiskey Fire

#11

> The fire is believed to have started in Laurence Malone's bonded storehouse on the corner of Ardee Street, where 5,000 hogsheads (262,500 imperial gallons or 1,193,000 litres or 315,200 US gallons) of whiskey were being stored... Hogsheads sound like a fictional unit of measure made up to mock the imperial system.

[deleted]

Re: Dublin Whiskey Fire

#12
post #6

the idea of Irishmen drinking themselves to death in a whisky flood is... something my wee dram of Irish blood is not qualified to comment on, but it only killed a dozen people. Near twice that number died in the molasses flood in Boston https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Molasses_Flood The density of molasses is about 1.4 tonnes per cubic metre, 40% more dense than water, resulting in the molasses having a great de…

I'm Irish-American and a recovering alcoholic. I'm actually surprised only 13 people drank too much from a river of free whiskey and died.

Re: Dublin Whiskey Fire

#13

> The fire is believed to have started in Laurence Malone's bonded storehouse on the corner of Ardee Street, where 5,000 hogsheads (262,500 imperial gallons or 1,193,000 litres or 315,200 US gallons) of whiskey were being stored... Hogsheads sound like a fictional unit of measure made up to mock the imperial system.

It's not a unit per se but an actual size of liquor casks, equivalent to two barrels (also a standard unit in England but is the generic term for casks in US) or fourth (1/4) of a tun (the largest liquor cask defined), although you can use them all as units.

Fun fact: hogsheads are abbreviated as hhds :)

Re: Dublin Whiskey Fire

#15
post #6

the idea of Irishmen drinking themselves to death in a whisky flood is... something my wee dram of Irish blood is not qualified to comment on, but it only killed a dozen people. Near twice that number died in the molasses flood in Boston https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Molasses_Flood The density of molasses is about 1.4 tonnes per cubic metre, 40% more dense than water, resulting in the molasses having a great de…

> the idea of Irishmen drinking themselves to death in a whisky flood

If there's an actual flood of heated alcohol, then you might get poisoning just from inhaling? It's hard to avoid breathing, really.

Re: Dublin Whiskey Fire

#18

Got to love the anachronistic use of euros. No doubt any attempt to correct it would be rapidly suppressed

> No doubt any attempt to correct it would be rapidly suppressed

Wikipedia has consistent style rules around usage/conversion of currencies[1][2], so yes your edit would probably be swiftly reverted if it didn't follow those.

I'm not really sure why you're using such a conspiratorial tone.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Date...

[2] (From above page) "For obsolete currencies, provide an equivalent (formatted as a conversion) if possible, in the modern replacement currency (e.g. decimal pounds for historical pre-decimal pounds-and-shillings), or a US-dollar equivalent where there is no modern equivalent."

Re: Dublin Whiskey Fire

#20
post #8
post #4

The title should mention the year. Got me scared for a moment!

Agreed, "Dublin Whiskey Fire of 1875" or some such, would be fine. From the article: None of the fatalities suffered during the fire were due to smoke inhalation, burns, or any other form of direct contact with the fire itself; all of them were attributed to alcohol poisoning. What a way to go.

old joke -In a letter to her son: your grandpa drowned the other week, he fell in the vat of whiskey, they tried to pull him out 4 times but he fought them off. It took one week for his remains to stop burning in the crematory
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