Walking With Marty: Irish Whiskey Tour | Belfast Whiskey Week 2023

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

Filed: 15 Jul 2023
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 5 min
Ref: BWW/23/092

There are many ways to fall in love with a city, but few as immediately effective as following a knowledgeable Belfastman through its streets with a dram in hand. On the evening of Monday 24th October 2023, Marty McAuley gathered a small, well-shod group outside City Hall and led them on one of Belfast Whiskey Week's most warmly regarded walking tours — Irish Whiskey Review: Walking With Marty. Three hours, five drams, and more stories than any pub could comfortably hold.

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

It began, as all good Belfast adventures do, with a degree of cheerful chaos. Marty — true to his word — was easy enough to spot, sign aloft, dressed for the occasion, and already in fine conversational form as the last few stragglers made their way across the flagstones of Donegall Square. There was something quietly special about that starting point: City Hall as the threshold between the everyday Belfast and the one Marty was about to reveal. The duchas of the place — that deep sense of inherited belonging — was present from the first step.

What followed was not simply a whiskey tasting with legs. Marty's tour was a piece of living seanchas, a tradition of oral storytelling worn comfortably into the fabric of an evening walk. He moved the group through Belfast's streets with the ease of someone who has done this many times and still means every word of it. The history of Irish whiskey — its rises, its long and painful decline, and its extraordinary modern resurgence — was woven into each stop, each pour, each bite of food. And yes, he fed people. Properly. No one went home hungry, which given the three-hour duration and the five drams involved, was a mercy worth noting.

The whiskeys themselves were chosen to illustrate a story rather than simply impress, which is always the more interesting approach. Five drams across multiple venues gave participants a sense of range and context — a small journey through the character of Irish whiskey as much as through the streets of the city. Marty's stated aim of 'imparting impartiality' held: this was not a brand showcase but a genuine attempt to educate and delight in equal measure. Those curious about where Belfast sits on the wider whiskey map would do well to explore our Belfast Whiskey Map to trace the broader landscape of the city's distilling scene.

The walking tour format suited both the material and the man. Belfast is a city best understood on foot, where the sheugh between its various identities — industrial and artistic, scarred and regenerating, local and international — can be felt in the texture of the streets themselves. Marty navigated all of that with warmth and wit, and participants left with more than just a pleasant buzz. They left knowing something true about this city and its relationship with the uisce beatha. For those who couldn't make this particular session, it's worth knowing it was one of several walking experiences on offer during BWW 2023 — Belfast Hidden Tours: Walking, Whiskies & Whispers offered a different kind of nocturnal adventure, and Belfast Walking Tours: Belfast's Public Houses & Art Trail took a complementary route through the city's artistic and licensed heritage.

Sláinte to Marty McAuley, whose generosity of spirit and genuine love for Belfast and its whiskey culture made this one of the festival's most human events. Walking tours live or die on the quality of their guide, and here the quality was never in question. We look forward to more dandering.