Walking With Marty | Belfast Whiskey Week 2023 Walking Tour

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/23/772

There are guided tours, and then there's Walking With Marty. On a Tuesday evening in October 2023, Marty McAuley gathered a band of willing wanderers outside City Hall and led them on a three-hour ramble through the beating heart of Belfast — armed with nothing but good stories, a healthy pour policy, and an infectious love for the uisce beatha. It was, as promised, exactly that simple and exactly that good.

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

The instructions were disarmingly straightforward: comfy shoes, weather-appropriate layers, and a willingness to follow a man with a Belfast Whiskey Week sign into the city's best whiskey haunts. Marty McAuley is the kind of host who makes you feel like you've known him for years before you've even left the starting point. The group that gathered at City Hall that evening — a mix of locals and visitors, seasoned whiskey drinkers and enthusiastic newcomers — fell into easy conversation almost immediately, which is perhaps the finest thing Belfast does: it pulls strangers together without ceremony.

What followed was a proper dander through the city, with Marty serving as guide, raconteur, and informal professor of all things Irish whiskey. He didn't just walk people between venues; he wove the seanchas of this great whiskey city into every stop — the history of distilling in Ulster, the rise, fall, and remarkable revival of Irish whiskey, and Belfast's own proud, complicated place within that story. Five drams punctuated the evening, each one chosen to illustrate a point, complement a tale, or simply reward the group for keeping up the pace. Food was folded in along the way too, as Marty had promised, so no one arrived home hungry or unduly sober.

What made Walking With Marty stand apart from a standard tasting or a conventional pub crawl was the intimacy of it. Small numbers, open streets, and a host who genuinely loves his subject make for a different kind of learning — one that sticks. The city itself became part of the curriculum, its tír, its architecture, its sheughs and shortcuts all folded into the narrative. Belfast after dark, glimpsed through Marty's eyes, is a richer place entirely. For those who wanted to explore more of the city's whiskey geography at their own pace, our Whiskey Map offers a fine companion to exactly this kind of evening.

It's worth noting that Walking With Marty wasn't a one-off experiment in 2023 — it ran across multiple timeslots throughout the festival week, testament to the demand it generated and the reputation Marty has built. If you missed it, the festival also offered similarly spirited outings through Belfast Hidden Tours: Walking, Whiskies & Whispers and Belfast Walking Tours: Belfast's Public Houses & Art Trail, each taking a different angle on the city's remarkable relationship with whiskey and culture. Together, they formed one of the most distinctive strands of Belfast Whiskey Week 2023 — proof that the best way to understand a whiskey city is sometimes simply to walk it.

At £50 for three hours of guided storytelling, five thoughtfully poured drams, food, and the kind of craic that can't be manufactured, Walking With Marty represented genuine value — not just as an evening out, but as an education. Sláinte, Marty. See you on the street.