Cassidy, James Archbold (1827/8–90), distiller and brewer, was the second of three sons of Robert Cassidy (1791–1858), a strong farmer at Jamestown, Co. Kildare, who in 1839 took over the distilling and brewing firm at nearby Monasterevan founded in 1784 by his father, John Cassidy (1756–1834), one of the first catholic justices of the peace in the county and later a member of the Catholic Board. Robert Cassidy's wife, Eleanor, was a daughter of James Archbold (1752–1804?), a Dublin wine and fruit importer and linen exporter, who in 1782 inherited a property, Davidstown, Co. Kildare, and married a daughter of the catholic gentry family of Kavanagh of Borris, Co. Carlow; in 1792 he was a delegate from Co. Kildare at the Catholic Convention.
James Archbold Cassidy and his younger brother, Robert (d. 1867), took over the family business on their father's death, their elder brother, John Valentine Cassidy (b. 1828), having made a career at the bar. After Robert's death, James had sole charge and set about making extensions and improvements, notably replacing the water-wheel with two water turbines, and bringing the business to its greatest success: in 1886 the distillery occupied ten acres and had a staff of more than seventy. A keen huntsman with the Kildare hounds, Cassidy also maintained a racing and breeding stud formed by his younger brother, and in 1881 and 1882 was winner of the Irish Derby.
He died, aged sixty-two, at Cannes, on 22 December 1890, and was buried in his family's mausoleum at Passlands, near his home, Togher Lodge, Monasterevan, which he had built c.1854 when he married a Miss McDonald. His property at death was valued at £153,256. His two sons, Robert Edward and Edward James Mario Cassidy, continued the business until their deaths, within three days of each other, in 1918. Under Robert Edward's young son, James, it declined and went into voluntary liquidation in 1921. Letters, diaries, and commonplace books of the Cassidy family and firm survive in the NLI as do other Cassidy papers in the NAI.