Region & History

Around 1800, Dublin revolved almost entirely around whiskey, with more than 37 distilleries standing in the city. Six of them clustered tightly together in the Liberties district, which soon became known as the "Golden Triangle" thanks to the wealth it generated.

Four names shaped the scene. John Jameson had been distilling on Bow Street since 1780. John Power and his son worked just a few minutes' walk away, on John's Lane. Biggest of all was George Roe: his distillery on Thomas Street sprawled across seventeen hectares. It produced two million gallons a year, more than any other distillery in the world.

The decline came step by step through the 20th century: US Prohibition wiped out a key export market. The trade war with Britain following independence sealed off the next. Many distilleries could no longer compete with cheaper Scotch blends. George Roe's distillery on Thomas Street closed in 1926, and its empty site was bought in 1949 by its neighbor: Guinness.

What remained merged together and moved production out to the countryside, to Midleton in County Cork. Dublin itself went decades without a distillery of its own. Only in 2015 did a permanent address return, with Teeling opening in Newmarket. It was the city's first new distillery in over 125 years.

More followed: in 2017, Pearse Lyons Distillery opened in a former church. In 2019, the Dublin Liberties Distillery followed, housed in a four-hundred-year-old mill. That same year, Roe & Co also opened, named after George Roe and set in the former Guinness power station on Thomas Street—just a few steps from the original site. Inland, in the province of Leinster, the story was quieter. Kilbeggan in County Westmeath and the younger Cooley Distillery in County Louth kept the craft alive. Even so, Dublin long claimed most of the headlines.