Marty McAuley Walking Tour | Belfast Whiskey Week 2024

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

Filed: 21 Jul 2024
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 3 min
Ref: BWW/24/972

On a July Sunday in 2024, a small band of whiskey pilgrims gathered at the gates of Belfast City Hall, comfy shoes laced, layers on, ready to follow one man and his stories through the lanes and lore of a great whiskey city. Session 24 of Belfast Whiskey Week — Whiskey, Wonderings & Walking Tour with Marty McAuley — was less a ticketed event and more a duchas offered freely to anyone willing to put one foot in front of the other.

About This Event

There’s no easier way to put this: Put your comfy shoes on, dress for Belfast Weather, grab yer ticket and meet me at City Hall. I’ll be wearing clothes. Easy to find sure, with a Whiskey Week sign. Once all the stragglers get here - we’re off! Then it’s just me, you, and a handful of other chaps and lassies, as we dander about Belfast in search of good craic, good whiskey and good places to tell my stories. This walking tour is full of food, whiskies and me imparting the impartiality, expelling the experiences and holding forth the history of this Great Whiskey City. No need to eat before hand - I’ll feed and water you, promise - Marty McAuley

Looking Back

There's a particular kind of Belfast morning that could go either way — a sly drizzle threatening from the Cave Hill direction, the city still finding its feet — and Marty McAuley seemed entirely at home in it. He stood at City Hall as promised, sign aloft, wearing clothes (as advertised), waiting with the easy patience of a man who knows his city will reward those who slow down long enough to listen. The stragglers arrived, introductions were made, and off the group went into the tír of Belfast's whiskey story at a comfortable dander.

What made this session so quietly remarkable was how naturally the seanchas flowed. Marty didn't lecture — he held court. He wove together the social history of the city's distilling past with sharp observation, genuine warmth and the kind of local knowledge that no guidebook ever quite captures. Streets that might otherwise be walked through without a second glance became stages for stories: of distillers long gone, of the uisce beatha trade that once pulsed through this city's veins, of the remarkable revival now rewriting Belfast's identity on the world whiskey map. Those curious to trace that history further might enjoy browsing the Belfast Whiskey Map, which charts the living landscape of that revival.

True to his word, Marty fed and watered his charges along the way. The whiskies chosen for each stop felt considered rather than arbitrary — each one a conversation starter, a way of anchoring the story to the glass in hand. There was no pressure to be an expert, no expectation of a particular palate. Sláinte was said often and meant every time. Food appeared at the right moments, softening the drams and keeping spirits — of all kinds — at a pleasant level. It was the kind of afternoon that makes you understand why whiskey tourism and genuine hospitality are so difficult to separate in this part of the world.

Session 24 sat within a wider week that gave Bushmills considerable prominence — from introductory tastings to deep-dive masterclasses exploring everything from core malts to cask-strength expressions. If Marty's walking tour was the city itself speaking, then sessions like the Bushmills History MasterClass and the Bushmills Causeway Collection MasterClass offered the distillery's own voice in reply — together forming a full portrait of Ulster's whiskey character, ancient and evolving in the same breath.

For £15, this was one of the finest ways Belfast Whiskey Week has ever spent a Sunday. Not every festival session needs a tasting mat, a presenter's slide deck or a branded glass. Sometimes all it takes is someone who loves a city enough to share it, and a few souls willing to follow. Marty McAuley delivered exactly that — and Belfast, as it always does for those who pay it proper attention, delivered the rest.