Let me lead you on a merry dance of serendipity, an eventful minuet which advances from keeping time upon a ship, by way of pirouettes, to its last bars which feature Arthur Guinness.
At the end of the 18th century, living conditions aboard British naval ships were quite appalling and the discipline draconian.
In the early summer of 1797, near the Nore sand-bank in the Thames estuary, where the North Sea fleet was anchored at the time, there was a well-organised revolt against this situation.
Now, the nautical day is divided into periods of duty called "watches", most of them being four hours in length.
The passage of time during each watch is signalled by the sounding of the ship's bell every half an hour, the number of strokes on the bell indicating the number of half-hours which have elapsed since the beginning of a watch; when eight bells toll a four-hour watch is over.
And the pre-arranged signal for the inception of what has come to be called the Nore Mutiny was the sound of the five bells to mark 6.30 p.m. on May 20th.
The mutiny lasted three weeks, and when it was over the authorities decreed that the signal for the mutiny should never again be heard aboard a British ship.
Even to this day, the bells of "the second dog watch" begin again with only one stroke at 6.30, rather than the usual five; the normal pattern is resumed only with next watch which begins at 8 o'clock.
One of those instrumental in quelling the Nore Mutiny was a first lieutenant from Dublin called John Norcott D'Esterre.
Legend has it that the mutineers had put a rope around his neck and threatened to hang him if he did not join them.
"Hang me and be damned!" replied D'Esterre's, and because of his audacity he survived to tell the tale.
By 1815, D'Esterre was back in Dublin.
The story goes that Daniel O'Connell referred to Dublin Corporation in a speech as "beggarly", and D'Esterre demanded an apology on behalf of his colleagues on that august body.
However, O'Connell refused, further insults were exchanged, and a duel was arranged. On a cold February day in 1815, with the snow thick on the ground, the two met at Bishop's Court, Co Kildare. D'Esterre fired the first shot and missed; O'Connell aimed wide but inadvertently hit his opponent in the hip and D'Esterre died of his wound a few days later.
In 1829, Jane Mary Lucretia D'Esterre, widow of the late duellist, married John Gratten Guinness, youngest son of Arthur Guinness of St James's Gate.