Qualla: Kilbeggan Distillery

Kilbeggan Distillery: Introduction

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit HighKing, CC BY-SA 3.0. The license to distill dates from 1757. The pot still in the corner is 180 years old. And the whiskey being made today at Kilbeggan Distillery in County Westmeath is the first to be fully distilled and matured on-site since the place went dark in 1953, when the owners could not afford the duty to release Christmas whiskey from bond. Kilbeggan holds the oldest distilling license in the world, but keeping it alive has required a kind of stubbornness that borders on the unreasonable.

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Image: HighKing | CC BY-SA 3.0

Kilbeggan Distillery: Matthew MacManus and the First Still

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit High Contrast, CC BY 3.0 de. Matthew MacManus founded the distillery in 1757, on the banks of the River Brosna in the small town of Kilbeggan. In its earliest years, the operation was modest: a 232-gallon still producing about 1,500 gallons annually. By the early 19th century, under the stewardship of John a...

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Kilbeggan Distillery: The Locke Years

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Peter Gavigan, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1843, John Locke took over the distillery, and under his management Kilbeggan flourished. Locke was that rare figure in 19th-century Irish industry: a proprietor who treated his workers well and was beloved for it. He provided cottages for employees, offering them either renta...

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Image: Peter Gavigan | CC BY-SA 3.0

Kilbeggan Distillery: A Century of Calamity

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Serge Ottaviani, CC BY-SA 4.0. The 20th century hit Irish whiskey like a series of body blows: American Prohibition cut off the largest export market, the Anglo-Irish Trade War of the 1930s hampered access to the British Empire, world wars disrupted shipping, and blended Scotch stole customers who might have r...

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Image: Serge Ottaviani | CC BY-SA 4.0

Kilbeggan Distillery: The Leviathan Stirs Again

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Serge Ottaviani, CC BY-SA 4.0. The license was never surrendered. In 2007, after half a century of silence, distilling recommenced at Kilbeggan. One of the two pot stills installed for the revival was a 180-year-old vessel originally used at the Old Tullamore Distillery in the early 1800s -- a deliberate nod t...

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Image: Serge Ottaviani | CC BY-SA 4.0