McConnell's Distillery Tour – Belfast Whiskey Week 2024

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

Filed: 23 Jul 2024
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 3 min
Ref: BWW/24/868

There are moments during Belfast Whiskey Week when the history of uisce beatha in this city stops feeling like seanchas and starts feeling entirely, thrillingly present. The McConnell's Signature Distillery Tour on 23rd July 2024 was one of those moments — a chance to step inside a brand-new chapter of Belfast's whiskey story, written in copper and stone just minutes from the city centre.

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 Whiskey carries one of the oldest names in Belfast distilling, a brand with roots stretching back to 1776 and a duchas — a sense of belonging to this place — that runs deeper than most. When the doors of the new McConnell's Distillery and Visitor Attraction opened earlier in 2024, it wasn't just a ribbon-cutting moment for the brand; it was a statement about Belfast's ambitions as a genuine world-class whiskey destination. By the time BWW2024 came around in July, the distillery was barely months old, and the Signature Tour sold as one of the festival's most coveted tickets for exactly that reason.

Visitors who booked in for MT23A found themselves among the very first in the world to experience the full distillery tour — a fact that gave the whole afternoon a particular sense of occasion. The building itself is spectacular: a historic Belfast structure sensitively reimagined, where the weight of the city's industrial past sits comfortably alongside gleaming new production equipment. Guides walked guests through the story of the McConnell's revival — from the brand's long silence through the twentieth century to its return as a serious, Belfast-made spirit — and the passion in the telling was unmistakable.

The tour lasted around an hour and covered the full arc of production, from grain to glass, with plenty of time to take in the craftsmanship of the space itself. For whiskey lovers, the detail was satisfying without ever becoming exclusive; for curious first-timers, the storytelling made it genuinely accessible. There was something quietly moving about standing in a working Belfast distillery again and knowing that the spirit being made here would carry the city's name out into the world. Sláinte to that.

It's worth noting that McConnell's tours have become a returning fixture of Belfast Whiskey Week, reflecting the distillery's place at the heart of the festival's identity. If you missed this particular session, other McConnell's tour slots from BWW2024 told much the same story, and the distillery continues to welcome visitors year-round. For those who want to explore everything Belfast's whiskey landscape has to offer, our Belfast Whiskey Map is a fine place to start planning a visit. And if your interests run toward the waterfront as well as the city centre, the Titanic Distillers Signature Tour made for a compelling companion piece during the same festival week.

At £25, MT23A represented genuine value — not just for the tasting and the access, but for the privilege of being genuinely early to something. McConnell's is a brand that knows where it came from, and this distillery makes clear exactly where it intends to go. Belfast is all the richer for it.