McConnell's Distillery Tour – Belfast Whiskey Week 2024

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

Filed: 24 Jul 2024
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 3 min
Ref: BWW/24/852

There are moments at Belfast Whiskey Week that feel less like an event and more like a piece of living history, and MT24A — the McConnell's Signature Distillery Tour — was exactly that. Held on 24th July 2024, this was among the very first guided tours ever offered to the public at McConnell's newly opened distillery, making it a genuinely rare privilege for everyone who walked through the door. For a city that has spent years reclaiming its place on the whiskey map of the world, stepping inside that building felt like something long overdue.

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 carries one of Belfast's most storied names — a brand with roots stretching back to 1776, when the city's uisce beatha trade was as much a part of its identity as linen or shipbuilding. The revival of that name, and the opening of a dedicated distillery and visitor attraction in the heart of the city, represents a genuine homecoming. And for those lucky enough to have joined the MT24A Signature Tour during Belfast Whiskey Week 2024, the timing couldn't have been more poignant — the distillery had only opened its doors a matter of months before.

The tour itself lasted around an hour, and guides led small groups through what is, by any measure, a spectacular space. The building carries that particular weight you feel in older Belfast architecture — the kind of duchas that no amount of renovation can scrub clean, and shouldn't. Visitors moved through the production areas, learning how spirit is made from grain to glass on these very premises, before the seanchas of the McConnell's name was unpicked with evident pride. It wasn't a rehearsed sales pitch; it was the story of a city getting something back.

At £25 a head, the Signature Tour represented solid value, not least because attendees were, in a very real sense, among the first people in the world to experience this distillery as a working visitor attraction. There's something quietly thrilling about that — being part of the opening chapter of a place whose story has barely begun to be written. The tasting component gave guests the chance to sit with McConnell's whisky properly, glasses in hand, rather than simply passing through a gift shop.

The distillery sits only a few minutes' walk from Belfast City Centre, which made it an easy addition to a day's exploration for festival-goers keen to follow Belfast's whiskey trail. If you wanted to see how the city's distilling renaissance is taking shape, this was the place to start — though it paired well with other tours running across the week, including the Titanic Distillers Signature Tour, another landmark stop on the Belfast Whiskey Map that shows just how much is happening in this city right now.

MT24A sold out, as it deserved to. It was the kind of event that reminds you why Belfast Whiskey Week exists — not just to taste good whiskey, but to bear witness to something being built. Sláinte mhór to everyone who was there.