Ireland

Ireland’s experiences in this guide are in Dublin, and they are about drink. The Guinness Storehouse, at the St. James’s Gate brewery, tells the story of the dry stout brewed there since 1759. Two whiskey addresses in the city, the Teeling Whiskey Distillery and the Irish Whiskey Museum, run guided tours that end with a tasting. Entry prices start from 22 euros per person, as read on the operators’ own sites.

Getting around

Dublin Airport, north of the city, is the country’s main gateway. The three visits are in or close to the city centre, so a car is not needed for them.

Ireland’s distilleries pass a million visitors

Irish whiskey distilleries welcomed 1,040,159 visitors in the year to June 2026, more than a million for the second year running and over 30,000 up on the year before, according to the Irish Whiskey Association’s annual Irish Whiskey Way survey. The association says visitors are spending more, travelling further into rural Ireland and treating distilleries as cultural attractions, at a time when the country’s overseas visitor numbers fell during much of 2025.

What the law calls Irish whiskey

The Irish Whiskey Act 1980 sets the rules. The spirit must be distilled in the State or in Northern Ireland from a mash of cereals, saccharified by the diastase of malt, fermented by yeast and distilled at less than 94.8% alcohol by volume, so that it keeps the aroma and flavour of its raw materials. It must then mature in wooden casks, in warehouse, for at least three years.

• The three years may be spent in the Republic, in Northern Ireland or split between the two.

Guinness, since 1759

Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000-year lease on the St. James’s Gate brewery in 1759, the story at the heart of the Storehouse visit. The Gravity Bar at the top looks out over Dublin through 360 degrees, and a separate Guinness Brewery Experience takes small groups through the working brewery.