Cooley Distillery: Connemara and Tyrconnell

Type: Distillery

Connemara and Tyrconnell are single malts associated with Cooley Distillery on the Cooley Peninsula in County Louth. Founded by John Teeling in 1987, it helped reopen Irish whiskey to independent production, with double distillation and a peated single malt among its distinguishing features.[4][2]

Cooley at a glance

What Cooley is known for

Cooley’s importance rests on both its place in Irish whiskey history and the different whiskeys associated with it. Whiskipedia describes it as the first new Irish whiskey distillery in over a century and credits it with ending Irish Distillers’ near-monopoly. Those are trade accounts of its significance, rather than claims that every part of the industry changed at once.[4]

Its production also offers a useful correction to familiar assumptions about Irish whiskey. Cooley generally distils twice, while Connemara brings peat into its single malt. Tyrconnell provides another point of reference: a single malt associated with bourbon-cask maturation, without Connemara’s defining peated identity.[4][2]

The distinction between distillery and brand matters here. Cooley is the production site in County Louth; Connemara and Tyrconnell are whiskey names connected with it. Reading those names as locations would obscure the relationship that makes this distillery worth understanding.[2]

From an industrial alcohol plant to an independent distillery

Cooley began with an existing industrial site rather than a purpose-built whiskey distillery. John Teeling bought the state-owned Ceimici Teoranta potato alcohol plant in 1985, and the conversion to run two column stills took under two years, according to the sheet’s historical account.[4][2]

That origin helps explain why Cooley’s story includes both pot and column distillation. The recorded equipment now comprises two pot stills and three columns, rather than a production arrangement devoted solely to the two single malts in this article’s title. Its wider whiskey history includes blends and corn-based single grain whiskey as well.[4][2]

Story box: Tyrconnell’s return through Cooley

Founding story: John Teeling founded Cooley in County Louth in 1987 after buying the former industrial alcohol plant in 1985. Sources: Whiskipedia and WhiskeyAtlas.

Turning point: Cooley acquired Tyrconnell as a brand in 1988. The name had been dormant since Watt’s Distillery closed in 1925; the year of its first release under Cooley is not reliably established. Sources: Whiskipedia and WhiskeyAtlas.

Documented record: The sheet establishes a brand revival after more than 60 years, not the reopening of Watt’s Distillery. Claim and source mapping: acquisition, dormancy and revival are supported by Whiskipedia and WhiskeyAtlas.

Verdict: Documented. The central claim is that Tyrconnell was revived through Cooley after its long dormancy. No contrary evidence is recorded in the supplied sheet; the earliest source of the account is not established there.

Last checked: The exact day is not reliably established.

Double distillation and the production equipment

Cooley’s general method is double distillation. The explanation recorded by its sources is that a third distillation is thought to remove flavour; that is the reasoning behind the production choice, not evidence that double distillation is inherently better than triple distillation.[4][2]

The pot-still equipment consists of a 16,000 litre wash still and a 16,000 litre spirit still. Alongside them are three column stills, giving Cooley a production identity broader than its single malts alone. These are the equipment figures recorded in the November 2026 sheet, not a measure of how much whiskey was actually produced during that year.[4][2]

That distinction is useful when comparing distilleries. Still numbers and vessel sizes describe equipment, whereas production figures answer a different question. Cooley’s published history of malt, grain and blended whiskeys should therefore be read as a record of its activities, not converted into an assumed annual output.[4][2]

Connemara: peated single malt from County Louth

Connemara is Cooley’s peated, double-distilled single malt, matured in bourbon casks. The sheet records the standard whiskey at 40% ABV and identifies single-cask, cask-strength, 12 Year and Turf Mor versions in the brand’s history.[2]

Whiskipedia describes Connemara as the first peated Irish malt of modern times. Its significance is therefore more specific than simply being another Irish single malt: peat is central to the identity being presented, rather than an incidental detail. Documented: Turf Mor is the more heavily peated version of Connemara. The sources give no comparable measured peat figures.[2]

There are two useful distinctions for a reader encountering the name. First, Connemara is an Irish whiskey despite being peated. Second, its production home is Cooley in County Louth, not Connemara itself; the brand name should not be treated as a distillery address.[2]

The versions listed above are a record of the range described by the sources, not a statement that every expression remains in current release. A particular bottle’s name and strength should be read on its own terms, rather than assumed from the standard expression.[2]

Tyrconnell: a revived single malt name

Tyrconnell connects Cooley with an older whiskey name. The brand had been dormant since Watt’s Distillery closed in 1925 before its acquisition in 1988, making revival, rather than continuous production, the essential distinction in its history.[4][2]

WhiskeyAtlas describes Tyrconnell as a single malt from bourbon casks, bottled at 43% ABV.[2] That gives readers two concrete points of comparison with the standard Connemara recorded here: both are single malts associated with bourbon casks, while Connemara is explicitly identified as peated and is recorded at 40% ABV.[2]

Those facts do not establish a complete sensory comparison. They do, however, explain why the two brands belong together in an account of Cooley without being interchangeable. One carries the distillery’s documented peated identity; the other carries a revived historical name.[4][2]

Kilbeggan, grain whiskey and the wider family

Cooley’s history also runs through Kilbeggan. The Kilbeggan Distillery site was bought in 1987; its earlier foundation dates to 1757, and production was restored there in 2007, according to Whiskipedia. The separate Kilbeggan account is the better place to follow that site’s history.[4][2]

The whiskey names need similar care. The sheet records Kilbeggan as a blend, while Kilbeggan Single Grain was formerly called Greenore and was made from corn. Neither should be confused with Connemara or Tyrconnell simply because the names appear within Cooley’s wider history.[2]

Other connections extend beyond the two principal single malts. The sheet records 2 Gingers as a blend created by Kieran Folliard in 2011 and acquired by Beam a year after launch. It also records discontinued poitin and Michael Collins single malt, which belong to the historical account rather than a presumed current range.[2]

Ownership changes and the Teeling connection

Beam announced its purchase of Cooley on 16 December 2011, and the sale closed on 17 January 2012. Suntory’s acquisition of Beam followed on 30 April 2014; the November 2026 sheet identifies Cooley’s owner as Suntory Global Spirits, within Suntory Holdings.[2]

The Teeling family’s subsequent ventures should be kept separate from Cooley’s present ownership. Documented: John Teeling founded Great Northern Distillery in Dundalk, while Jack and Stephen established Teeling Whiskey Company using stock from Cooley. The Teeling story follows that separate business connection.[2]

Production and ownership timeline

Common mistakes

“All Irish whiskey is triple distilled.” Cooley is a clear counterexample because its whiskeys are generally distilled twice. The mistake comes from treating a familiar production approach as a rule for an entire country.[4][2]

“Peated whiskey cannot be Irish.” Connemara is a peated Irish single malt. Its place in Cooley’s range demonstrates why national identity and the use of peat should not be treated as mutually exclusive.[2]

“Connemara must be distilled in Connemara.” The whiskey is a Cooley product from County Louth. Here, the name identifies the brand, not the production location.[2]

Where to go next

• Kilbeggan: follow the separate distillery site connected with Cooley’s history.
• Teeling: explore the family’s subsequent whiskey business.
• Bushmills: place another Irish single malt producer alongside Cooley.

Sources

[2] WhiskeyAtlas. Cooley Distillery. Undated trade reference, version recorded in the supplied fact sheet, checked November 2026. https://www.whiskeyatlas.co.uk/distillery/cooley

[4] Whiskipedia. Cooley Whiskey Distillery. Undated trade reference, version recorded in the supplied fact sheet, checked November 2026. https://whiskipedia.com/distilleries/cooley/

This article was prepared as desk research from the supplied verified fact sheet and its cited trade accounts, without a site visit or tasting.

Last checked: November 2026.