Walking With Marty | Belfast Whiskey Week 2023 Review

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

Filed: 15 Jul 2023
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 4 min
Ref: BWW/23/644

There are walking tours, and then there is Walking With Marty. On a Sunday evening in October 2023, a small group of whiskey lovers gathered at the gates of City Hall, found a man with a sign and a warm grin, and set off into the Belfast streets for three hours of uisce beatha, seanchas, and the kind of craic you can't plan in advance. This was Belfast Whiskey Week at its most human — no tasting room, no lectern, just the city itself as the venue.

About This Event

There’s no easier way to put this: Put your comfy shoes on, dress for Belfast Weather, grab yer ticket and meet me at City Hall. I’ll be wearing clothes. Easy to find sure, with a Whiskey Week sign. Once all the stragglers get here - we’re off! Then it’s just me, you, and a handful of other chaps and lassies, as we dander about Belfast in search of good craic, good whiskey and good places to tell my stories. This walking tour is full of food, whiskies and me imparting the impartiality, expelling the experiences and holding forth the history of this Great Whiskey City. No need to eat before hand - I’ll feed and water you, promise - Marty McAuley Timeslot: 6pm-9pm Start Time: 6pm Duration: 3hrs Venue: Multiple Locations Drinks: 5 Drams Type: Walking Tour Walking: Be Prepared to Walk around Belfast. Some of the areas & venues may not be fully accessible, please contact us @belfastwhiskeyweek on socials, or via email on marketing@belfastwhiskeyweek.com or 07773675179 (8am-8pm) to discuss. Disclaimers Please note that individual dietary requirements are not being catered for with any food at this event. Each Brand/Distillery and Collaborative Partner have agreed to our Min/Max Pour Policy. Please Respect this, and enjoy your festival responsibly. Festival Participants who are deemed to be too inebriated, or are not respecting themselves, will not be permitted into events and venues. ALL Hosts/Ushers/Collaborators and Venue Staff have the right to refuse participants without question and recourse. Please Drink Responsibly. All events are only available to those 18 years old and over. Do not purchase tickets if you are under the age of 18. Be prepared to produce ID if required. Venue staff & ushers may ask you to provide ID when showing your valid tickets. You may be refused enter to events if you can’t prove your age. Some venues may change, if they do, you will be notified. All events are subject to changes out of the control of the festival organisers. Any issues, please contact us @belfastwhiskeyweek on socials, or via email on marketing@belfastwhiskeyweek.com or 07773675179 (8am-8pm) to discuss. NO Refunds will be given. Please only buy tickets if you are prepared to attend the event. Tickets are transferable. If you are going to transfer tickets please email, marketing@belfastwhiskeyweek.com

Looking Back

Marty McAuley has the gift. That particular duchas — the inherited ease with a city, its lanes, its pub doors, its contradictions — that makes a guided walk feel less like a tour and more like being welcomed into a long-running conversation. The briefing was characteristically no-nonsense: comfy shoes, layers for the weather (wise advice in any Belfast October), and meet at City Hall. From there, the city did what Belfast does best — it opened up, corner by corner, dram by dram.

Five drams were poured across the evening at a handful of carefully chosen stops, each chosen not just for the whiskey on offer but for the story that could be told there. Marty's approach to Irish whiskey history is not academic — it is lived, argued over, worn lightly and shared generously. Guests found themselves learning about the rise and long fall and tentative renaissance of this island's distilling tradition while standing inside the very city that once sat at the heart of it. That connection between place and glass is what makes this format sing. You are not just tasting whiskey; you are tasting tír — the land, the history, the particular Belfast-ness of it all.

Food was woven through the evening too, which kept spirits high and heads level. Marty had promised to feed and water his group, and he delivered on both counts. The pacing was generous — never rushed, never lagging — with enough time at each stop to settle into a dram and a conversation before the group gathered itself and moved on through the sheughs and streets of the city. By the time the evening wound down somewhere around nine o'clock, the consensus was clear: three hours had gone by far too quickly.

Walking With Marty had become something of a BWW institution by 2023, having run in various forms across multiple festival editions — you can see the lineage across the earlier Sunday session of the same tour that week, and the spirit of the format echoes through related outings like Belfast Hidden Tours: Walking, Whiskies & Whispers and the ever-popular Belfast Walking Tours: Belfast's Public Houses & Art Trail. Each takes a different angle on the city, but all share the same conviction — that Belfast is best understood on foot, glass in hand, with someone who loves it doing the talking.

For those who missed this particular Sunday evening slot, the good news is that Marty and his walking tour companions have consistently returned to the festival across the years. Sláinte to everyone who laced up their shoes and showed up — and to Marty, who made the whole thing look effortless while clearly putting the work in. That is the quiet art of a great host.