The gold and black Croithlí Distillery sign on a granite wall, with a black whiskey barrel and a pale blue flower pot below it.

Davey John’s Forge · Journal

An afternoon at the Crolly Distillery

19 October 2026

About an hour west of the Forge, past Errigal, there is a whiskey distillery in an old army barracks. It is a good place to be when the weather turns.

The drive

West, past Errigal

We went on Saturday. It is a good hour from Carrigart, out past Errigal and on towards Donegal Airport, and the road is half the pleasure. The mountain stays in the windscreen for a long time.

The distillery is at Croithlí, which most people know as Crolly. If the rain sets in while you are staying with us, this is where I would go.

Errigal above heather and a dry-stone wall at the side of an empty road, under a clear blue sky. — Errigal from the road west.

The building

A barracks, then a doll factory

The building is solid granite, and it was a British Army barracks until about 1922. Later it became the Crolly Dolls factory, which ran from the 1940s into the 1970s. Those dolls went all over the world until Barbie came along. After that it was a factory of one kind or another for some years, and now it is a distillery.

There is an old doll sitting up beside the whiskey boxes, and she looks entirely at home.

Whiskey barrels stacked on a pallet against the granite wall of the old barracks, in low sun, with a window above and stamped paving in front. — The granite front of the old barracks.

An old Crolly Doll in a red lace dress with curled white hair, seated against the granite wall beside three boxes of Croithlí whiskey. — One of the Crolly Dolls, still in the building.

The distillery

Independent, and young

It is not an old distillery. They have been distilling for seven or eight years, and the visitor centre has been open for about four. It is independent, and it began with a few Donegal men who met for whiskey on Friday nights and decided one evening to start one of their own.

The core range is the Oak Series, Coillín Darach. It is the same spirit finished in casks of three different oaks, and the tasting shows you what the wood does. The Sessile, from Irish oak, was green apple and caramel with a peppery finish. The Quercus Alba, from American white oak, brought nutmeg and apricot and spice. The Quercus Robur, from European oak, was Christmas cake and dark chocolate.

The three Oak Series bottles, Sessile, Quercus Alba and Quercus Robur, on a wooden tasting board above three nosing glasses and the tasting notes. — The Oak Series: Sessile, Quercus Alba and Quercus Robur.

The bar

A bar with a past

Most of the bar came out of Sister Sarah’s in Letterkenny when it was refitted, and part of it came from Jameson’s. Under a big copper lantern and the old roof timbers it feels like a proper bar rather than a visitor centre, which is a rare thing.

In the shop you can fill, label, sign and date your own bottle of the distillery reserve. And there is a resident ghost, a soldier shot by the guard around 1921 when he climbed back in after curfew. The staff say he unties shoelaces.

A large copper and leaded-glass lantern hanging from steel and timber trusses above the dark wood bar. — The copper lantern over the old bar.

Going yourself

How to visit

It is open seven days a week. Tours are booked through the distillery’s own website, and I would book before you set off, as it is a long way to go to find a full tour. Check there for times and prices, as they change.

The address is Drioglann Chroithlí, An Coillín Darach, Croithlí, Co. Donegal, F92 XHH5.

We loved it. It is on our Donegal map now, as somewhere to go.