McConnell's Distillery Tour – Belfast Whiskey Week 2024

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

Filed: 20 Jul 2024
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 3 min
Ref: BWW/24/236

There are moments during Belfast Whiskey Week when history and the present pour into the same glass, and the McConnell's Signature Distillery Tour on 20th July 2024 was exactly one of those moments. Held at the freshly opened McConnell's Distillery — a stone's throw from the city centre, housed in a building that carries the weight and warmth of Belfast's duchas — this was a rare chance to walk the floors of a working distillery before the wider world had even found the door. For those lucky enough to book a place, it was an hour well spent in the company of uisce beatha and living history.

About This Event

Book in for a Signature Tour with McConnell's and spend some time in one of Belfast's most historic buildings. Having only opened its doors a few months ago, you will be one of the first in the World to experience this truly spectacular Distillery and Visitor Attraction. It is only a few minutes walk from the City Centre and will last an hour.

Looking Back

McConnell's Irish Whisky is a name stitched into the seanchas of Belfast distilling. The brand traces its lineage back to 1776, making it one of the oldest Irish whiskey names in existence, yet its return to active distilling in the city is bracingly new. Having only opened its doors a matter of months before Belfast Whiskey Week 2024, the distillery on Pilot Street was still carrying that particular freshness — the smell of new oak, new ambition, and a city reclaiming its rightful place on the whiskey map. Attendees weren't just tourists; they were, in the truest sense, among the first people in the world to experience this place.

The Signature Tour itself moved at a pace that felt generous rather than rushed. Guides led small groups through the production spaces, explaining the journey from grain to glass with the kind of easy authority that comes from genuine pride in the craft. The building itself did much of the talking — a spectacular piece of Belfast's industrial heritage repurposed with care, where exposed brick and copper stills sit in a conversation that spans centuries. You didn't need to know your pot still from your column still to feel the pull of the place; it worked on everyone.

What set this BWW2024 session apart was its intimacy. These were early days for the distillery, and there was something almost conspiratorial about being ushered inside before the queues form and the coaches arrive. Guests left not just with a better understanding of how McConnell's whisky is made, but with a sense of having witnessed a beginning — a distillery finding its feet, a city finding its voice again in the world of whisky. At £25 a head, it was one of the better-value hours the festival offered all week.

For those who wanted more time in Belfast's distilling scene, the festival also ran the MT20B: McConnell's Signature Distillery Tour later the same day, as well as the ever-popular TT20A: Titanic Distillers Signature Tour across at the Thompson Pump House — another unmissable pairing of Belfast history and serious whiskey craft. Between the two distilleries, a visitor could sketch out a remarkable portrait of what this city is becoming in the world of uisce beatha. You can explore the full geography of Belfast's whiskey scene on our Whiskey Map.

Sláinte to McConnell's for opening their doors with such generosity during the week, and to every attendee who understood that they were standing somewhere that mattered. The tír has remembered how to make whiskey, and Belfast is all the better for it.