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/24/692

Few events at Belfast Whiskey Week 2024 carried quite the same sense of occasion as the McConnell's Signature Distillery Tour. Held on 24th July in one of Belfast's most storied buildings, this was a rare chance to step inside a working distillery that had only just opened its doors to the world — and to do so as part of the island's biggest whiskey festival made it all the more remarkable.

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

There is something in the Irish word duchas — that inherited sense of belonging to a place — that felt entirely fitting here. McConnell's Irish Whiskey is a name woven into the fabric of Belfast's distilling history, and the return of production to the city has been one of the most talked-about chapters in Irish whiskey's modern revival. To walk through those doors in July 2024, just months after the distillery had first welcomed visitors, was to be part of something genuinely new — and yet anchored in something very old indeed.

The Signature Tour lasted around an hour and covered the full sweep of the McConnell's story, from the brand's nineteenth-century origins right through to the gleaming copper and steel of the present-day operation. Guides brought real warmth and knowledge to the telling of it — this was seanchas in the best sense, a living tradition of storytelling that made the history feel immediate rather than museumised. Attendees moved through the production spaces, learned about the distilling process, and got a proper feel for what makes McConnell's approach to Irish whiskey distinctive.

The building itself deserves a mention in its own right. Situated just minutes from Belfast city centre, it is the kind of place that stops you in your tracks — the bones of it speak to the city's industrial confidence, and the restoration has been handled with evident care. It is a venue that earns your attention before a drop has been poured. For those who want to locate it or plan a return visit, it features on the Belfast Whiskey Week Whiskey Map, which charts the full geography of the festival across the city.

As part of BWW2024, the tour sat comfortably alongside some of the festival's other landmark distillery experiences. Fans of behind-the-scenes access will know that Titanic Distillers ran their own Signature Tours during the same week, offering a different but equally compelling window into Belfast's distilling renaissance. Between them, these tours made a compelling case that the city is reclaiming its rightful place on the uisce beatha map of these islands.

At £25 a head, the McConnell's Signature Tour represented genuine value — not just as a whiskey experience, but as an encounter with a piece of Belfast that is still finding its shape. For those who missed this session, other tour slots ran across the festival week, and McConnell's continues to welcome visitors year-round. But there was something particular about experiencing it within the energy of Belfast Whiskey Week — sláinte to everyone who made it through those doors.