Glens of Antrim at Belfast Whiskey Expo 2024 | Belfast Whiskey Week

Name: Belfast Whiskey Week 2026
Start: 2026-07-24
End: 2026-08-01
Location: Belfast

Filed: 26 Jul 2024
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 4 min
Ref: BWW/24/412

On a warm Friday evening in late July 2024, St Comgall's — that grand, repurposed schoolhouse at the heart of Belfast's Falls Road — threw open its doors to the biggest whiskey gathering the city has ever seen. The Belfast Whiskey Expo brought together over thirty brands and distilleries under one roof, and among them, Glens of Antrim Distillery arrived carrying the salt air and quiet drama of Ulster's North Coast. It was, by any measure, a night to remember.

About This Event

Friday 26th July 2024
St Comgall's - Ionad Eileen Howell
5:30pm-9pm

Welcome to the largest Whiskey Show in Belfast with over 30 Brands and Distilleries, giving you an opportunity to meet the Distillers, Owners and Ambassadors while sampling whiskies from all over the world.

Plenty of Irish and World Exclusives only for Belfast Whiskey Week.

Food on Site.
Live Music.
Bar Available.

Sponsors:
ABL Insurance. (HEADLINER)
Urban Glass
Whiskey Club NI
Serac Ice
Three Cents

Supported by:
Irish Whiskey Magazine, Bushmills, Powers, Redbreast, Method & Madness, Copeland Distillery, Glens of Antrim Distillery, Dingle Distillery, W.D. O’Connell Whiskey, Dragon Claw, Killowen Distillery, Jameson, ShortCross Distillery, Titanic Distillery, Echlinville Distillery, R&R Distillery, McConnell’s Distillery, Limavady Whiskey, Two Stacks Whiskey, Spots Whiskies, Midleton, Roe & Co, Dead Rabbit, Pearse Lyons Distillery, Dublin Liberties Distillery, Loch Measc Distillery, Ahascragh Distillery, Lough Ree Distillery, Glendalough, Irishman Whiskey, Douglas Laing, Launceston Distillery, Killara Distillery, Transportation Whiskey, Belgrove Distillery, House of Jackal, Whiskey Nomads, The Angel’s Share, Born Irish

Looking Back

From half five until nine, the great hall of St Comgall's — Ionad Eileen Howell — hummed with the kind of energy that only uisce beatha can summon. Distillers, brand ambassadors, and owners stood shoulder to shoulder with curious visitors and seasoned enthusiasts, the conversation flowing as freely as the drams. This wasn't a trade fair with lanyards and pitch decks; it had the warmth of a céilí and the substance of a serious whiskey education. Live music lifted the room, food kept everyone grounded, and the bar ensured nobody went thirsty between tastings.

With Irish and world exclusives poured only for Belfast Whiskey Week ticket holders, there was a genuine sense of occasion — the feeling that what was in your glass that night wasn't available anywhere else on earth. Sponsors ABL Insurance, Urban Glass, Whiskey Club NI, Serac Ice, and Three Cents helped stitch the whole event together, while a remarkable supporting cast stretched from local heroes like Titanic Distillery, McConnell's, Echlinville, and ShortCross to Irish stalwarts Redbreast, Midleton, Jameson, and Bushmills — whose deep connection with Belfast Whiskey Week across multiple sessions, including the excellent Bushmills Causeway Collection MasterClass, speaks to a relationship built on genuine respect for the craft.

Glens of Antrim Distillery brings the duchas of one of Ulster's most extraordinary landscapes to everything they do. The Glens are steep, green, and run straight to the sea — and that tír, that sense of place, is present in their Lir Whiskey in a way that doesn't need to be explained so much as felt. At the Expo, the distillery's presence was exactly what you'd hope for from a producer rooted in seanchas and landscape: knowledgeable, unhurried, and generous with their story. Attendees who found their way to the Glens of Antrim table left with more than a dram — they left with a sense of the glen itself. For those keen to explore further, the Belfast Whiskey Week Whiskey Map traces the full geography of producers who've called this festival home.

The breadth of the Expo was genuinely staggering. Alongside the Irish contingent — Dingle, Killowen, Copeland, Two Stacks, Glendalough, Pearse Lyons, Dublin Liberties, Loch Measc, Ahascragh, Lough Ree, and more — came international arrivals that turned the room into a whiskey atlas. Australia's Launceston Distillery and Killara Distillery brought Southern Hemisphere character; Dead Rabbit, Transportation Whiskey, and House of Jackal added American ambition; Douglas Laing carried the Scots torch. The world, it seemed, had heard what Belfast was building and wanted to be part of it.

At £35 a ticket, the Belfast Whiskey Expo 2024 represented something rare in the festival world: genuine value that didn't compromise on quality. The setting at St Comgall's — a building that carries its own layers of Belfast history — gave the evening a weight that a blank-canvas events space could never replicate. Sláinte to every distiller, ambassador, and dram-hunter who made it what it was. If this is what Belfast Whiskey Week looks like at its grandest scale, the future of Irish whiskey culture in the North is in very fine hands indeed.