‘House of Guinness’ Ending Explained: Does Sir Arthur Guinness Die?

The new Netflix drama House of Guinness ends with a literal bang. After eight episodes of tension bubbling between the rich Irish Protestant Guinness family and the Fenian cause, spearheaded in the show by Patrick (Seamus O’Hara) and Ellen Cochrane (Niamh McCormack), it all boils over.

**Spoilers for House of Guinness, now streaming on Netflix**

The very last episode of House of Guinness deals with Patrick Cochrane’s unwanted return to Ireland after he had been initially exiled to America. Paddy already loathed the Guinness family before they shipped him off to New York because they represented everything he felt was holding Ireland back. Sir Arthur Guinness (Anthony Boyle) was also a Conservative politician in favor of maintaining English control over all of Ireland. The Irish Catholic Patrick, on the other hand, dreamt of a free Ireland. Adding insult to all of these already grievous injuries for Paddy? The knowledge that his sister Ellen had an affair with Arthur’s younger brother Edward (Louis Partridge).

So when Patrick Cochrane returns to Dublin, he’s a man on a dangerous mission. He is going to assassinate Sir Arthur Guinness.

“I think when her brother comes and tells her that he is going to to kill Arthur Guinness, she knows what that means, that he is sacrificing himself for for the cause,” House of Guinness star Niamh McCormack told DECIDER. “And she wants him alive. She needs him. He is all she has in this world.”

Ellen ultimately tries to diffuse the situation by attending the same political rally where Patrick is expected to take his literal shot at Arthur. She begs the Guinness family’s fixer, Rafferty (James Norton), to not hurt her brother. Rather, if she spots him in the crowd before Rafferty’s crew does, she’ll blow her whistle so they can arrest, but not kill, Patrick.

“I think that she just wants to keep the peace, which is that theme that she she follows throughout,” McCormack said. “She doesn’t want anyone dead, even Arthur Guinness, who is a completely different character in terms of their religious backgrounds and the politics that follows.”

Of course, House of Guinness ends with Rafferty’s men distracted, Ellen blowing her whistle, and Patrick taking his shot. So does Patrick Cochrane kill Sir Arthur Guinness? Does House of Guinness end in death? Will there be a second season of House of Guinness? Here’s everything we know so far about the end — and future — of House of Guinness on Netflix…

House of Guinness Ending Explained: Does Arthur Guinness Die?

So does Patrick Cochrane succeed in assassinating Sir Arthur Guinness at the end of House of Guinness? Nope.

If you just google Sir Arthur Guinness, you’ll know that he is not assassinated. In fact, he goes on to become a prominent politician, only dying at the age of 75 in 1915.

DECIDER asked House of Guinness creator and showrunner Steven Knight if he was worried that this historical fact might defuse his cliffhanger ending. He said, “That bullet, I don’t yet know where it goes.”

That means that even if Arthur escapes death, another character on the show could be killed instead. Many of the supporting characters, like the Cochranes and Rafferty, are fictional creations who could easily be sacrificed without changing history.

Now, if Knight doesn’t care about historical accuracy — after all, this is a show that touts itself as a “fiction based on true stories” — there are several Guinnesses who could get hit simply because they insisted on rallying around Arthur at the end.

Knight shared that it was important to him that the family ends up united because he felt, “the Guinness family, in reality, they were like that.”

“They had a lot of enemies. They had a lot of people who wanted them to fail, collectively, and I think that does build a kind of unity,” Knight said. “The Guinness motto, ‘In love, we trust.’ They trust love.”

But what’s next for House of Guinness?

Will There Be a House of Guinness Season 2?

House of Guinness was promoted as a limited series, but its cliffhanger ending suggests that there might be a plan for more seasons.

“If you’re asking me what I want, I want to do many more seasons,” Steven Knight said. “I can’t make any announcements now, but that’s the intention.”

House of Guinness‘s leading men are also down to come back and reprise their roles.

“We want to make this like Grey’s Anatomy,” Anthony Boyle said, after joking he’d like to see it go nineteen years. “I’ll get the mustache back. We’d love it.”

“Yeah, how much are they paying me?” Louis Partridge quipped, before saying, “I hope they do [continue the series].”