Whiskey in Tullamore: from Bury Quay to Clonminch

Tullamore Dew is the most famous thing ever made in this town, and for decades it was not made here at all. That gap is the whole story, and it explains why the whiskey you can see in Tullamore today is spread across three addresses that are not where most visitors expect.

Molloy, Daly and Williams

There were distilleries in Tullamore in the 1780s, and they did not last. The one that did was opened by Michael Molloy in 1829. When he died it went to his brother Anthony and then to his nephew Bernard Daly, and when Daly died his son, Captain Bernard Daly, took it on. The Captain had an estate in Terenure, and he left the running of the place to the distillery's general manager, Daniel E. Williams.

Williams is the D.E.W. on the label. Under him the distillery grew, and so did the town around it: he brought electricity to Tullamore in 1893, the distillery put in the town's first telephones and its first motor transport, and the Williams businesses ran drinks, tea, seed and grain and a chain of general stores across the midlands. Hugh Lynch's on Kilbride Street, a pub since the early 1800s, was one of the outlets the Williams group bought in the early 1900s and ran as a bar and grocery selling the whiskey. The Lynch family have had it since 1971.

The long absence

Prohibition in the United States, the economic war with Britain in the 1930s and the Second World War all damaged Irish whiskey, and the Tullamore distillery shut in 1954. The brand survived. Desmond Williams, Daniel's grandson, used modern marketing to push Irish whiskey back into world markets after the war, and in 1947 he launched Irish Mist, the whiskey and honey liqueur. When the brand was revived it was made at first at the Midleton distillery in Co. Cork, and the town kept only the name.

In 2014 the brand's owners, William Grant and Sons, opened a new distillery at Clonminch, about two kilometres south of the Square beside the bypass, and whiskey has been distilled in Tullamore again since then.

Where to see it now

The distillery at Clonminch

The tour is the working distillery, not a museum. It lasts 105 minutes and starts with an Irish coffee, goes through the still house and a blending lab, includes a tasting from the cask in the warehouse, and ends with a tasting of three expressions. You can make your own blend and bottle it for an extra charge. On 16 October 2026 the operator listed it at €47 including the booking fee, with 10% off online bookings. It is strictly over-18s and capped at eight people a tour, so book rather than turn up, and do not plan to drive afterwards.

Tours run Monday to Saturday at eleven, twelve, one, two, three and four, and on Sundays and bank holidays at eleven, twelve, two and three, on the times the operator's page shows. The visitor centre and shop close for Christmas, from 23 December to 1 January on the last published dates.

The Old Warehouse on Bury Quay

Until October 2020 the old bonded warehouse on Bury Quay was the Tullamore Dew heritage centre. The company moved its visitor experience out to the working distillery, and in December 2022 it reopened as the Old Warehouse, a bar and restaurant owned by Shane Lowry and Alan Clancy. The three copper stills on the inside wall give the café its name. It is not a whiskey attraction any more, but it is the building the brand lived in.

Hugh Lynch's, Kilbride Street

The third address is the pub building on Kilbride Street with its Williams-era history. Its own website now advertises 24 self-catering rooms in the building, booked direct.

A practical evening

The simplest plan is an afternoon tour at Clonminch, a taxi back to town, and dinner on Bury Quay at the Old Warehouse or on Harbour Street at the Blue Apron, which needs a phone booking. If you only have time for one, do the tour: it is the only place in Tullamore where you can see the whiskey being made.