Achill Island is a landscape infused with loss. Abandoned villages, dried out petrol stations, plaques commemorating those who died in the Famine, or those forced to emigrate in the almost 200 years since; it feels like everywhere you go you are confronted with the act of separation – island from mainland, kith from kin. It’s a place of extraordinary beauty – vast sea cliffs sweep down to golden crescent beaches, plains of bog teem with life, hidden mountain lakes sparkle, roads cling to the hillsides and everywhere you go feels like a discovery for you and you alone. There are also sheep – thousands of them, wandering freely around the hills, down onto the roads, the beaches, the back gardens of the island’s two thousand residents. In spring this means spending a lot of time crawling along narrow roads behind a ewe and various black faced lambs as they totter about the place. Soon they too shall part.
It takes vision to see the potential here for a distillery. It has the right setting, but the logistics make it a challenge. Whiskey tourism can be big business, if you sit within Dublin’s golden triangle – Jameson Bow Street, Roe & Co, Teeling, Dublin Liberties, and Pearse Lyons Distillery are all within walking distance of each other. It’s slightly different if you are on an island off the west coast of Ireland, 84km from the nearest distilleries. But for John McKay, Achill was the perfect spot, and the journey from mainland to island across the Achill Sound was part of that magic. From Dundalk, he married a Mayo woman and settled in the yew county.
McKay’s background was in construction, civil engineering and property development, but in 2014 he took a notion to launch a whiskey brand. He had various business dealings in the US over the years and he could see the power of the diaspora and how they consumed products that spoke of the homeland – so when it came to naming his brand, he went straight for the jugular; IrishAmerican Irish Whiskey. He focussed his sales work on the US – specifically Boston – and while the brand also sold well domestically, the US was the land of opportunity for growth. And grow it did. Soon McKay realised that in order to feed the demand, he would need a distillery. Despite being from Ballyhaunis on the Mayo mainland, he set his eye on Achill Island – the site he was looking at had room for expansion, tourism footfall, unique maturation climate, and would also allow him to achieve his goal of producing Ireland’s first island whiskey (aside from all the whiskey made on the island of Ireland already). Speaking to Mayo Live in 2018 he said: “I live in Mayo myself and I didn’t want to open just another distillery in Dublin. I wanted it to be in Mayo and the opportunity arose to locate it in Achill. It is a unique location and will be the only distillery in Ireland and maybe even Europe on an island and as far west as you can go.”
His choice of site was an obvious one; Achill Island Brewery opened in Bunnacurry in September 2014, run by two sets of brothers who were also cousins. They used water from Bunnafreeva Lough – which sits more than 300m above sea level – and Carrageen Moss, a type of seaweed, as an ingredient. In 2017 it was reported that the brewery was in liquidation, unable to pay their electricity bills, and that the relationships between the founders had soured. The building they operated out of was owned by Údarás na Gaeltachta, the regional authority responsible for the development of the Irish-speaking regions of Ireland. After the brewkit was auctioned off, John McKay took over the unit, and with the support of a €174,000 capital investment package from Údarás na Gaeltachta to renovate the building, and another €4 million private investment on top of that, the facility was transformed. The two stills from Speyside Copperworks were brought across the Michael Davitt Bridge from the mainland, led by a bagpiper playing The West’s Awake, and installed. Now all they needed were distillers.
Ken Quinn had moved from Dublin to the island to work as brewer with Achill Island Brewery, and immediately took to island life – he joined the RNLI, set up Achill Island Boxing Club, and settled down. After the brewery closed, he became lead distiller in Achill Island Distillery. The set up of the distillery was overseen by David Hynes of Great Northern Distillery while Dr Jack O’Shea also provided guidance.
Drioglann Oileán Acla (the official Irish language name for Achill Island Distillery) was officially opened by the then Minister for Rural and Community Development, Michael Ring on June 14, 2019. On the day, Minister Ring paid tribute to John McKay for bringing his vision to life: ““Thank you for your investment here today…To John and your family I want to thank you for choosing Achill because you could have chosen any corner of Ireland and I want to say, on behalf of the Government, thank you.”
John McKay died from an aggressive form of stomach cancer in the last days of February 2020. As the world was plunged into the worst pandemic in living memory, the McKay family – John’s wife Marion, sons Michael and Seán, daughters Kelly Ann and Katie – were plunged into grief, isolated by pandemic restrictions. Two years later, John’s right hand man, fellow founder and distiller Mick Gallagher, passed away suddenly. Mick and John were married to two sisters and were like brothers to each other; without them the project could have lost its focus, but John’s sons were unwilling to give up on their father’s dream, as Michael explains: “It was a difficult and sad time to lose our father just as the distillery dream was finally realised. But we just had to dig deep and carry on, no one knows what life has in store really. Losing our uncle Mick Gallagher as well shortly after was a tough blow to take. Mick was my father’s right-hand man in construction and lifelong friend for 40 years.”
Michael says the hardship of those losses has kept things in perspective as the world stumbled out of the pandemic and into trade wars: “It grounds us in a sense and helps put tariff woes, Covid, and rising production costs into perspective. We have come through a tough few years but it just gives everyone here more drive and resilience to push ahead. These two men put us on a good footing for the future and their legacy is a major part of what drives everyone here to make a success of the distillery.”
Graduating with a BComm in economics from Galway University, Michael worked as a fund accounting supervisor with Deutsche Bank in Dublin before moving to New York to work as a fund accounting manager with HedgeServ for four years before he came home in 2019 to work with the distillery, and he says his background gave him many of the less glamorous skills that are crucial to running a distillery: “There is a lot of work involved in the background to operating a distillery that may not be realised; forecasting long term financial projections, managing cashflow, cask management strategy, production cost analysis. Dealing with Revenue was very intense and paperwork-heavy to get the distillery up and running. Obtaining GI compliance, bonded warehouse licensing as well as manufacturing and sales licensing. This is something that needs constant attention, and fortunately my previous financial skillset was easily transferable to this role.”
But coming home wasn’t just about the distillery, as he explains: “Like most Irish people you get a stronger sense of patriotism when you are away from, and I had a greater appreciation of the culture and community spirit we have here in Ireland when I returned.”
But behind the widescreen romanticism and John Hinde-esque landscapes of the wild Atlantic way, the logistics of running a distillery on a small island located on the rural and rugged west coast of a larger island are an added complication to any business: “Yes there is an additional cost in shipments getting them this far out, as well as increased waiting times. There is not as much regular courier service in this part of the west. But it’s something we are used to and build into our logistics planning. If we are given two-day delivery time we just assume a week, however it’s a small price to pay for our scenic location.”
Achill resident Heinrich Böll noted the same effect when he said that when God made time he made plenty of it – Böll wrote often of the fluid nature of scheduling on the island, such as when the screening of a film was delayed so all the local priests plus other members of the clergy holidaying on the island could take their seats. Another frequent visitor to the island was Graham Greene, who engaged in an illicit affair with Catherine Walston, the wealthy socialite wife of a British MP; her island residence was an old fisherman’s cottage, with tin roof and no electricity. It feeds into the romanticisation of island life – waves smash upon the rocks, storms roll in off the Atlantic and pummel homes, lovers entwine on a horsehair mattress and come undone when the real world comes calling – the island offers beauty and brutality, comfort and cruelty, the purity of nature and the grubby business of human desire. Greene’s novel The End Of The Affair – which detailed the disintegration of a doomed romance between a married woman and a writer – was dedicated to his island lover.
But all this romance, all this lore, this useless beauty isn’t a whole lot of good when trying to build a brand around a distillery that few can visit. Having an incredible location meant nothing during a pandemic which killed tourism for almost two years; now the world faces a cost of living crisis which is also impacting travel and tourism. Coupled with this the tariffs inflicted on American consumers by their current commander in chief.
But Achill Island Distillery has an ace up its sleeve – while pricey Irish whiskeys have been making headlines for years now, Achill have quietly been making some of the best bang-for-your-buck spirits in the category. A bottle of their core single malt is under €50, usually €47, and almost half that in the duty free at Mayo’s Knock Airport. Their special edition single pot still releases – complete with wooden box and all the trimmings – retails for only €123. In a scene where brands are charging significant sums for sourced product and wild prices for their own young whiskeys, it’s quite the feat. I asked Michael how they do it: “It’s something we prioritise – giving customers a premium whiskey experience and good value for money. We want our whiskey in as many people’s hands as possible and to experience and enjoy what we are making here.I can’t speak for other distilleries but we have a very efficient production process and get maximum LPA return from our mash thanks to Ken’s methods.
“Our focus over the last five years has been mainly on production over marketing and ensuring we produce high quality spirit and we won’t release anything unless we are completely happy with it. To quote our sales director Paul McKay, we let the whiskey tell us when it’s ready to be released. We have been in no rush to release our whiskey and we have slowly built up our core range of three single malts and soon to be released single pot still. Now we feel we have a solid core range behind us we can push our products more and give it the marketing backup it needs.”
The core releases are the bourbon cask matured single malt, a bourbon cask matured single malt with Bordeaux red wine cask finish, and what they call their peated single malt which is actually an unpeated single malt finished in a peated cask courtesy of another island distillery, Laphroaig. They wanted to have a nod to the island’s extensive peat bogs, but didn’t want to run the risk of tainting future spirit runs with peat, so they used a peaty Islay quarter cask instead. The peat was too soft if they released it at 44% – as they did the other two core bottles – so they left it at a robust 60%.
Their two Scottish-made 5,000 litre stills are used mostly for triple distillation – they worked with double distillation but felt what it added in initial impact it lost in finish. They run seven days a week production and perhaps reflecting the slower pace of island life, Achill distillery runs their seven fermenters on a very long fermentation – seven days in winter and five days in summer. Although having a former craft brewer as a distiller probably helped steer this decision. They fill between 800 and 1,200 casks per year, and are coming to the end of their cask programme which offers bourbon casks of single malt or pot still on a seven year hold with all labelling and bottling included in the €6,000 price. Their warehouse is on site also.
Alongside the whiskey they also make Akill Vodka, Keem Bay gin, An Bodán high-proof poitín, and a number of contract spirits for The Confession Box pub in Dublin. They also brought out a special sourced whiskey called JJ Devine’s named after the fictional pub in Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees Of Inisherin, which was shot on numerous locations around the island.
They plan to continue the IrishAmerican brand their father started, transitioning over time to their own stock: “There is no plan to phase it out, quite the opposite actually. IrishAmerican is the brand that got us started and has been going from strength to strength in recent years, especially the emergence of the global travel retail sector for us. The sourced stock element of IrishAmerican is the part that will be phased out as our own stock matures. The current five-year IrishAmerican is Achill Island Distillery liquid and in the coming years all the IrishAmerican will be our own Achill Island spirit.
“With the exception of course being our IrishAmerican Founders Reserve series the 21 year plus range. This stock was our father’s vintage collection which we release every couple of years as it ages; the series will run expressions of 25, 28, 30, and 32 years plus. It’s a series we released to honour his legacy featuring his signature on the bottle and something that is very special to us.
“In terms of what’s coming next, we are always looking to develop each year and we currently have an Achill Island Aged rum in the pipeline. This is rum that we made ourselves from imported molasses, distilled and matured here for a minimum 18 months. It’s been an exciting project and we are looking forward to releasing it soon.
“Our San Patricios 7 Anos has just won Gold at the San Francisco World Spirit competition along with silvers for IrishAmerican 21 year and Achill Island Bordeaux Cask. This will help us in our drive to promote these three brands as this is our main focus for the next 12 months.”
They are also looking beyond the American market for sales, pushing into Europe and Asia, with Michael telling Mayo Live, “It is not like America is the only show in town.”
But their pricing may well see them survive where others fail. Distillers that operated with great fanfare or spent tens of millions on distilleries will struggle to compete with Achill on the shelf. The Achill team are fighters, and they know when you have to roll with the punches. When I call to the distillery in April, it is closed, and asking why in a nearby shop I am told ‘they are all boxing mad and are off in Portugal for a tournament’. I pass later in the day and they are back open, with Kenneth Quinn – son of head distiller Ken – fresh off the plane from Porto and visibly exhausted. His brother Ben also works in the distillery, and both are All Ireland boxing champions. Another distiller, Matthew, is also a keen boxer and won a recent bout in Westport. The island has an indirect link to a tradition of boxing – Johnny Kilbane, once considered to be one of the world’s greatest featherweights, was the son of an Achill emigrant and an Achill-American mother. He is commemorated with a statue outside the boxing club where Ken coaches.
Achill distillery is the plucky underdog in Irish whiskey – their releases are smooth and pleasant, young but polished, and at under fifty euro, they punch above their weight. Maybe it’s time they had a shot at the title.
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