Marty McAuley Walking Tour | Belfast Whiskey Week 2024

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

Filed: 25 Jul 2024
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 3 min
Ref: BWW/24/604

There are masterclasses, and then there are the events that feel less like a lesson and more like a gift — and Marty McAuley's Whiskey, Wonderings & Walking Tour at Belfast Whiskey Week 2024 was firmly in the second camp. On a Thursday in late July, a small band of whiskey wanderers pulled on their comfy shoes, gathered outside City Hall, and set off into the streets of Belfast with one of the city's most enthusiastic guides leading the way. What followed was two hours or so of uisce beatha, stories, and the kind of seanchas you can't find in any tasting room.

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

Marty had promised to feed and water his guests, and he was true to his word. The tour wasn't a pub crawl with a microphone bolted on — it had shape and intention, moving through Belfast with a deliberate sense of place, of tír, of belonging. Each stop felt chosen rather than convenient, and with Marty at the helm, the history of whiskey in this city wasn't delivered as a lecture but as something lived-in and local, the kind of knowledge that comes from genuine love of the subject. There was craic, there were drams, and there was food — and not a moment felt like filler.

What set this event apart from a conventional tasting was the city itself becoming the vessel. Belfast has earned its reputation as a serious whiskey destination, and walking its streets with someone who knows both the liquid and the lore gave attendees a layer of context that no seminar room can replicate. The stories Marty told — and he told them with relish — felt rooted in the duchas of the place, the inherited sense of who this city is and what it has always made. For visitors from further afield, it was an initiation; for locals, it was a reminder of how much there is to appreciate on your own doorstep.

The tour sat comfortably alongside some of BWW 2024's more structured whiskey education. Those who had deepened their knowledge at events like the Bushmills History MasterClass or the Bushmills Causeway Collection MasterClass brought that context with them into the streets, and it showed in the conversations that sprang up between strangers who were, by the end, anything but. Marty had that rare ability to meet people wherever they were on their whiskey journey — novice or seasoned sipper — and make each of them feel the tour was made for them.

At £15, this was one of the most generous value propositions in the entire festival programme. The combination of guided food, poured whisky, and local storytelling would have justified a higher price tag without complaint. But then, that generosity — that instinct to share rather than sell — felt entirely in keeping with what Marty brought to the afternoon. Sláinte to him for it. If he runs this again in 2025, get your comfy shoes ready early, because tickets won't hang around.