Whiskey making is to return to Dublin's Liberties area with the establishment of a new distillery in Newmarket Square.
The Teeling Whiskey Company has confirmed plans for the first new working distillery to open in the capital for more than 125 years. The distillery is expected to start production in the fourth quarter of this year with a new visitor centre opening in early 2015.
The announcement is seen as a major boost for the local area, which was left largely untouched by the boom.
Teeling said it expects to welcome between 40,000 and 50,000 guests to the visitor centre in its first year, with this increasing to 100,000 guests over the coming years. The company said it intends to reinvest a percentage of the visitor centre’s entrance fees in local community projects.
At least 30 full-time jobs in distilling, bottling, operations and other areas are to be created as part of the €10 million initiative. A further 50 temporary positions will also be created during the construction phase.
The new Teeling 3,600sqm facility, designed by George Boyle Designs, will have the capacity to produce 500,000 litres of whiskey on an annual basis and will consist of three traditional copper Pot Stills, reviving the traditional style of the old Dublin distilleries.
"We looked around for more than a year for premises but a number of the places we considered had planning permission issues," said Jack Teeling, founder and managing director of the Teeling Whiskey Company.
"The Liberties was an area that had been due to be redeveloped but wasn't because of the end of the Celtic Tiger so there were a number of sites available that had the right zoning. The Liberties was also attractive because it had the right heritage in terms of its many associations with whiskey production," he added.
Teeling, the founder and managing director of the Teeling Whiskey Company, established the firm after selling Cooley Distillery to Beam for $95 million in January 2012. His brother Stephen, formerly senior global marketing manager for Irish whiskey in Beam, joined the firm earlier this month.
The Teeling family has a long association with the local area with Walter Teeling setting up a distillery in nearby Marrowbone Lane in 1782. At that time, there were more than 37 different distillers in Dublin across The Liberties, the Coombe, Newmarket and Smithfield. The last whiskey distillery in the capital shut down in 1976.
The decision to base the distillery in the Liberties has been warmly received.
"This is the first serious investment in this area for a long time, We're right next door to the Guinness headquarters and to St Patrick's Cathedral, so I think it will prove very attractive to tourists. It should also help to attract more businesses into the area, which can only be a positive," said Eric Byrne, Labour TD for Dublin South-Central.
Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton described the Teelings family's return to the area as "a great story".
“Irish whiskey, having been in the doldrums for years, is now the fastest growing spirit in the world. We’ve seen just closures of distilleries in recent years and now we’re seeing the opening of a new one right in the heart of the south of the city which will be good for tourism and jobs,” he said.
