Sipping History: A County Kerry Whiskey with Revolutionary Roots

Maurice O'Connell

Discover a place where the past blends seamlessly with the present at this lakeside distillery, steeped in connections to one of Ireland’s most famous political figures…    

Maurice O’Connell of Wayward Irish Spirits is a busy man, but he always finds time to talk about his “three-times great grand-uncle” Dan, one of Ireland’s most famous sons. Born in County Kerry some 250 years ago, Daniel O’Connell is widely regarded as Ireland’s greatest reformer; a figure immortalised by a dedicated monument on Dublin’s main street, which also bears his name.  

Known as 'The Liberator', Daniel O’Connell was a celebrated 19th-century figure in Irish history, admired for his powerful oratory and commitment to peaceful change. His influence reached far beyond Ireland, inspiring notable global leaders including Frederick Douglass and Mahatma Gandhi, who referenced O’Connell in his autobiography. 

A legacy distilled  

When we catch up on a phone call, Maurice is at Bloom, Ireland’s annual food and gardening festival, launching a new peat-finished gin called Wayward Smoky Gin. 

There is both pride and freedom in reclaiming the moniker of “wayward”, Maurice explains. The word was originally applied to his famous ancestor by the prime minister of the United Kingdom at the time, Robert Peel, for O’Connell’s independent-minded determination to change the status quo. “We like to think it gives us a license to do things in a different way,” Maurice chuckles. Some of these different ways include ageing gin in a peated whiskey cask at the O’Connell ancestral home in County Kerry for a subtle but unique smoky character.  

Lakeview Estate, Co. Kerry.

Wayward Smokey Gin is the first gin to be created at Lakeview Estate, which sits on the shores of Killarney’s magnificent Lough Leane – the largest of Killarney’s lakes. However, they have been producing whiskey at the estate since Wayward Irish Spirits was established in 2017. Here, in a 300-year-old stone-walled farmhouse turned bonded warehouse, rests a collection of casks that make up an evolving library of unique Irish whiskeys. Some were bought as aged whiskey from various Irish distilleries and brought here to be finished in casks imported directly from northern Portugal, where Maurice’s wife Francesca has family connections with Porto’s port quintas.   

Some were commissioned to bespoke specifications and brought here as a “new-make spirit” to mature exclusively in Kerry’s famously mercurial climate. “Whiskey matures by interacting with the cask,” Maurice explains, “and Killarney’s very changeable weather is known for giving us four seasons in an hour.” Mild winters extend the maturation season, and daily fluctuations in temperature and humidity help accelerate the process by increasing interactions between the cask and the liquid. 

Some extra special casks contain liquid that starts as barley grown in fields next to this “House of Contentment” – as their bonded warehouse is called. The liquid is then malted in small batches, distilled to their specifications as a pot still whiskey, and returned home to mature. 

Maurice describes their approach as that of a “whiskey bonder plus”, reflecting their focus on the skills of maturing, finishing and blending whiskey rather than distilling it – with the additional twist of that single estate whiskey. 

From premier barrels to prestigious bars 

The Shelbourne Hotel, Horseshoe Bar, Dublin City.

Walk into any famous haunt on the island of Ireland, such as The Horseshoe Bar in Dublin’s upscale Shelbourne Hotel, and you will spot these whiskeys on their upper shelves. They also take pride of place in Killarney’s own fabulous five-star hotel bars, including The Europe, The Killarney Park Hotel and the boutique four-star Cahernane House Hotel. 

The Liberator brand has become a standard-bearer in port-finished whiskey, thanks to the freshness of the casks. “We are refilling them with our whiskey within three weeks of being emptied of their port,” Maurice explains. This process – in contrast to six to nine months if sourced through a third party – has, according to Maurice, “a huge impact on the intensity of flavour”.  

Those casks are used multiple times for varied durations to age different whiskeys, including single malts and single grains, which can be blended later for an unusually layered complexity. The results are rich and warm, with vibrant red fruit flavours fleshing out the underlying whiskey character. 

Lakeview Single Estate Whiskey, in contrast, offers the spicy notes of Irish pot still whiskey distilled from the estate’s own barley, matured back on the estate for five years in Premier Grand Cru Bordeaux barrels, with 10 per cent given three months in ex-peated casks. It offers bright aromas of cherries and a rich, honeyed character with subtle smoke on the long finish. 

Exploring the estate 

For a deeper dive, visitors on a VVIP tour to the estate can sample some of the precious liquids straight from the cask at the House of Contentment. The main house is also available for private hire as luxury accommodation, with six bedrooms providing an unforgettable stay, while its refined period reception rooms can host private events. 

Whether you arrive via the beech-lined driveway flanked by fields and mountains, by helicopter or by water to the estate's private jetty, it is an experience you may remember as “a foretaste of heaven”, as the 19th-century poet Daniel McSweeney described the O’Connells’ famed home.   

On the tour, you can expect to be regaled with the family’s colourful history and “a wealth of stories of traders and warriors, poets and smugglers”, says Maurice. The O’Connell family was trading in the finest libations as early as the 15th century, when they made use of Kerry’s easy access to continental Europe to import wine and spirits from Spain and Portugal. When the English Parliament imposed hefty excise taxes in 1661, Maurice explains, the family simply made good use of Kerry’s natural hidden harbours to evade those newly imposed rules.  

By the time Daniel O’Connell was born on 8th August 1775, his uncle “Hunting Cap” Maurice O’Connell was a wealthy man – but a childless one. Seeking a suitable heir, he spotted young Dan as a nephew with great potential and sent him to France to receive an education.   

Lakeshore at Lakeview Estate, Co. Kerry.

Tracing O’Connell from Kerry to Dublin 

Lakeview Estate is an exclusive experience accessible by private bookings. However, the life of Ireland’s great liberator can easily be traced today from his place of birth at the southern tip of Kerry’s Iveragh Peninsula in Derrynane House – now an unmissable museum set amidst 120 hectares of parklands – to his burial place in north County Dublin’s Glasnevin Cemetery, where the family crypt is housed beneath a recently restored round tower.  

It’s a life’s journey worth retracing, remembering, and toasting with a special drop or two.