| Birr Distillery | |
| Type: | Irish whiskey |
| Location: | Offaly |
| Owner: | N/A |
| Founded: | 1805 |
| Founder: | R.&J. Wallace |
| Status: | N/A |
| Mothballed: | 1889 |
Birr Distillery is a distillery built in 1805 in County Offaly (previously known as King's County) in Ireland.[1]
The distillery was located close to Newbridge Street on the River Cam-Cor (meaning ‘crooked weir’). The three storey, quadrangular distillery was a substantial distillery at one stage with an annual output of 200,000 gallons, but not much is known about it today.[2]
There were five distilleries in County Offaly, but by 1818 there were only two in operation which were both located at Birr. [3] In the late 1840s, one of the distilleries closed, and the other was purchased by the Wallace Brothers who are only known by their initials R and J.[3] Birr Distillery consisted of a malting floor, kiln and mill, mash tun, still room, spirit store and bonded warehouse.[4]
The Wallace brothers kept Birr Distillery in business up to 1889 until a fire broke out and put an end to the distillery. A worker fell asleep and the friction caused by the millstone ignited the surrounds. As the fire spread, casks exploded and there are reports that state ‘the whiskey flowed in a flaming mass down the Camcor River, turning it into a great swirling and flaming Christmas pudding,’[2]
In the 1990s, it was bought by an English family who converted it to a summer house, while the other buildings across the river were converted into apartments.[2]