The history of Jacob’s biscuits is baked into the very fabric of Dublin. What began as a modest Quaker enterprise in Waterford soon became one of the capital’s most recognisable industrial and cultural landmarks. The company was founded in 1851 by brothers William and Robert Jacob, and within two years they had uprooted to Dublin, setting up shop in a former coach house on Peter’s Row in the Liberties. The move was a gamble, but by the 1880s, Jacob’s had grown into a sprawling red-brick factory complex dominating the Bishop Street skyline. It was here in 1885 that their most famous creation was born, the Cream Cracker. The Jacob’s biscuit factory was like a mini city unto itself. At its height it employed thousands, many of them women, who found in its gates not only work but community. The company provided a swimming pool, recreation rooms, and free medical and dental care long before such welfare schemes were more common. For generations, Jacob’s became part of Dublin family life, its clock tower visible from the south city, its baking aroma drifting across the Liberties. In 1913, the site was one of the flashpoints of Larkins great Dublin Lockout. Workers protesting there included the young Rosie Hackett, who would eventually lend her name to one of the city’s bridges. Three years later, in the turmoil of the 1916 Rising, the Jacob’s factory took on an altogether different role. With its fortress-like walls and commanding height, it was occupied by the Irish Volunteers. Fifty years later in 1966, the company merged with its old rival Boland’s, forming Irish Biscuits Ltd. Of course Boland's Mills also served as the hq for the 3rd Battalion of the Irish Volunteers during the Easter Rising, commanded by Dev in 16. Anyway a decade later in 1976, the Jacob’s Bishop Street works fell silent, as production shifted to a new purpose-built factory in Tallaght. The departure marked the end of an era. The Liberties lost one of its great employers, and the city lost one of its most distinctive industrial landmarks. Yet Jacob’s endured as biscuits continued to roll off Irish production lines a while longer until 2009, when operations finally ceased after 156 years. The Tallaght factory closed, and the brand passed into new ownership, eventually becoming part of the Valeo Foods empire. A section of the Bishop Street factory still stands, its brickwork incorporated into the National Archives and the Dublin Institute of Technology. Behind those walls are the archives of the company itself. Theres pay slips, photographs, and the faint record of a little city of women within a city.