McConnell's Distillery Tour – Belfast Whiskey Week 2024

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

Filed: 27 Jul 2024
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 3 min
Ref: BWW/24/196

There are moments in a city's story when the past and present pour into the same glass, and the McConnell's Signature Distillery Tour at Belfast Whiskey Week 2024 was exactly one of those moments. On 27th July, a fortunate group of whiskey lovers stepped inside one of Belfast's most storied buildings to become among the very first in the world to experience McConnell's newly opened distillery and visitor attraction. For a festival built on the idea that uisce beatha belongs to a place and its people, this was about as rooted in duchas as it gets.

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 a name that echoes through Belfast's industrial and cultural memory — a brand with roots stretching back to 1776, reborn in the heart of the city it never truly left. To walk through the doors of the distillery so soon after they first opened to the public was to feel that particular thrill of being present at the beginning of something. The building itself earns its billing as historic; every beam and brick seemed to have a seanchas of its own, and the newly installed stills and casks sat within it with quiet confidence, as if they'd always belonged there.

The tour lasted a full hour and covered the full sweep of what McConnell's is doing — both the craft of production and the deeper story of why this revival matters to Belfast. Guides were generous with their knowledge, walking visitors through the distilling process with the kind of easy authority that turns technical detail into genuine storytelling. There was nothing dry about it, if you'll pardon the expression. Questions were welcomed, tangents were encouraged, and the atmosphere throughout was closer to a céilí than a corporate briefing.

At just £25, the Signature Tour offered real value — not just in the liquid poured, but in the access granted. Given that the distillery had only opened its doors a few months before Belfast Whiskey Week 2024, attendees weren't just visitors; they were witnesses. This was living history, the kind that smells of new oak and wears the grain dust of a city rediscovering its tír. The fact that McConnell's sits only minutes from the City Centre made it all the more fitting — the distillery isn't hidden away from Belfast, it's woven into it. You can find it and other key destinations across the city on our Whiskey Map.

For those who caught more than one session during the week, McConnell's ran several tours across the festival — including MT19B on the 19th and MT20A on the 20th — a testament to the appetite that existed for this experience. And appetite there certainly was. Every session carried that sense of shared excitement that makes Belfast Whiskey Week special: strangers united by curiosity, raising a glass in a place that earns the toast. Sláinte mhaith to McConnell's, and to everyone who walked through those doors in July 2024.