The B&I was established in
Dublin in 1836 with an initial fleet of
paddle steamers by a group of Dublin businessmen including James Jameson, Arthur Guinness and Francis Carlton. The company was based on
Eden Quay until it moved to No. 46
East Wall in 1860. The fleet changed to iron in the 1840s and 1850s to ply on the company routes of
Falmouth–
Torquay–
Southampton–
Portsmouth and
London together with Dublin–
Wexford–
Waterford. The company acquired the London service of the
Waterford Steamship Company in 1870 by which they dominated this route. The
controlling owner of the B&I was the Liverpool Shipping Company. It was taken over by the Kylsant Royal Mail Company in 1917 and renamed
Coast Lines which by the end of 1917 held all the shares in the B&I. Among the operations of this group were, • Burns and Laird • City of
Cork Steam Packet • The Dublin and
Lancashire Shipping Co. (1922) •
Dundalk and Lancashire Shipping Co. (1922) •
Dundalk and Newry Steam Packet Company (1926) •
City of Dublin Steam Packet Company, founded 1823 (1920) • The
Belfast Steamship Company (1919) • Tedcastle and McCormack of Dublin (1919) The 1930s was a difficult period for the B&I, and Coast Lines offered the
Irish Government a share in the company but they declined. This was regretted on the outbreak of
World War II, when Coast Lines withdrew most of the vessels and placed them at the disposal of the British authorities. During the war, the company sustained casualties with the separate losses of two vessels in Liverpool in 1940: the
Innisfallen, and sunk by a
mine. B&I had offices and owned several buildings (9 North Wall Quay - Cartage and Motor Haulage Department, 12 North Wall Quay - further larger offices) and a yard at
North Wall Quay which bore its name in large letters and were demolished in the 1990s to make way for the offices of
Citibank as well as at 27
Sir John Rogerson's Quay which bore its name and are still standing as a protected structure as of 2020. ==Nationalisation==