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DRUMSHANBO

CO. LEITRIM · IE

Drumshanbo
Droim Seanbhó, Co. Leitrim

The Ireland's Hidden Heartlands
STOP 08 / 08

Droim Seanbhó · Co. Leitrim

A small town at the foot of the Iron Mountain that turned an old jam factory into a world-beating gin and never stopped playing music.

Drumshanbo is a small Leitrim town - around twelve hundred people - that has more going on than its size suggests. It sits in a notch between Sliabh an Iarainn, the Iron Mountain, and the lower end of Lough Allen, and it owes its whole existence to iron. From the 17th century, pig iron smelted on the slopes of Slieve Anierin was carried south across the lake to a finery forge here, where it was worked into malleable iron and shipped on to Dublin and Limerick. The forge is long gone, but the name of the mountain still tells you what the place was for.

The thing most people come for now is the gin. In 2014 PJ Rigney set up The Shed Distillery in a former jam factory on the edge of town and started making Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin - a blend built around gunpowder tea, oriental botanicals and grapefruit. It went global. By 2022 it had taken International Spirit Brand of the Year at the Wine Enthusiast awards, and the distillery had grown to over eighty staff and added vodka and whiskey. The tours are of a working distillery, not a themed attraction, and the Jackalope Café there does a decent lunch.

The other thing the town does is music and festivals, and it does both seriously for a place this size. The Joe Mooney Summer School runs every July - workshops and sessions in fiddle, flute, concertina and set dancing - and An Tóstal, the national festival that died out everywhere else after the 1950s, has run here without a break since 1953. Drumshanbo is the only town in Ireland where it survived. If you are here in late June or the third week of July, book a bed early.

Outside festival weeks it is a quiet, honest town. A short main street with a couple of trad pubs, the Sliabh an Iarainn Visitor Centre for the iron-and-coal history, and Acres Lake on the south side with the country's first floating boardwalk and a Blueway path that runs the few kilometres to Leitrim Village. The Eurovision-winning songwriter Charlie McGettigan has lived here since the 1970s, which tells you something about the kind of place it is.

Population

1,240 (2022)

Pubs

4and counting

Founded

Grew from the 17th-century iron industry around Sliabh an Iarainn

01 / 08

At a glance.

Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.

01 The mountain

Sliabh an Iarainn, the Iron Mountain, looms over the town.

585 metres of moorland to the east, named for the iron ore worked out of it for three centuries. The whole town owes its existence to the smelting that happened on these slopes from the 1600s.

Walks & the lake → 02 The gin

The Shed Distillery and Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin.

PJ Rigney opened a distillery in a former jam factory in 2014. The gunpowder-tea gin that came out of it took International Spirit Brand of the Year in 2022. Tours and tastings run on the edge of town.

Stories & lore → 03 The water

Lough Allen at one end, Acres Lake and a floating boardwalk at the other.

Drumshanbo sits at the lower tip of Lough Allen, the third-biggest lake on the Shannon. Acres Lake on the south side has Ireland's first floating boardwalk and a Blueway that runs to Leitrim Village.

Walks & the lake →

02 / 08

The pubs.

None of these are themed Irish pubs, because they don't need to be. A few that earn the trip:

Conway's Bar

Trad sessions, old-school

Traditional pub, Main Street

On Main Street, the pub people send you to for music. Known for its traditional sessions and a regular fixture during festival weeks. A proper old Leitrim bar rather than a refit.

Monica's Pub

Local

Town-centre pub

A long-running town pub. The kind of small-town local where the bar is the social centre and the welcome is genuine. Busy through the festivals, quiet and easy the rest of the time.

03 / 08

Where to eat.

Place	Type	€	Local note
Jinny's Bakery & Tearooms	Bakery & café	€	The town's daytime stop. Homemade bread, pastries and lunches. The reliable coffee-and-a-scone spot in the middle of Drumshanbo.
The Jackalope Café	Café at The Shed Distillery	€€	At the distillery on the edge of town. Locally sourced lunches and good coffee, handy if you are doing the gin tour or just passing. Worth combining with a distillery visit.

04 / 08

Stories & lore.

The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.

A jam factory to a world spirit brand

The gunpowder gin

PJ Rigney founded The Shed Distillery in Drumshanbo in 2014, in the shell of a former jam factory on the edge of town. The idea was a gin with real character - gunpowder tea, oriental botanicals, grapefruit - and the result, Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin, did what very few small-town Irish spirits have done: it went global. It took International Spirit Brand of the Year at the 2022 Wine Enthusiast Wine Star Awards, by which point the distillery employed over eighty people and had branched into Sausage Tree vodka and its own Irish whiskey. The distillery is a working building, and the tour shows the actual process rather than a story about it.

Three centuries of smelting on Sliabh an Iarainn

The Iron Mountain

Sliabh an Iarainn - the Iron Mountain - rises to 585 metres on the east side of the town, and its iron-ore deposits are the reason Drumshanbo exists. From the 17th century, ore was smelted into pig iron on the slopes of Slieve Anierin, then carried south across Lough Allen to a finery forge at Drumshanbo, where it was worked into malleable iron and shipped to Dublin and Limerick. Local tradition holds that the first ship built by the East India Company in Limerick was finished with iron from the Drumshanbo works. The forge is gone, the coal that came later is gone too, and the whole story is told at the Sliabh an Iarainn Visitor Centre in the middle of the town.

Running unbroken since 1953

An Tóstal, the festival that refused to die

An Tóstal - the Gathering - was a national festival of Irish life launched in 1953, opened that April by President Sean T. O'Kelly in front of a huge crowd on O'Connell Street. It faded out almost everywhere by the late 1950s. Almost everywhere. Drumshanbo kept it going, year after year, and is now the only town in Ireland where An Tóstal has run without a break since 1953. It happens around early June, a proper community festival rather than a tourist set-piece, carried on for decades by local families. If you want to see what an Irish town festival looked like before the term went corporate, this is the surviving original.

05 / 08

Things to do outside.

Wear waterproofs. Bring a sandwich. Tell someone where you're going if it's the mountain.

Acres Lake floating boardwalk On the south side of town. Ireland's first floating boardwalk runs out over Acres Lake - clear water, waterlilies, dragonflies in summer - and links into the Blueway. Flat, easy, and the best short walk in the town. Bring the kids.

2 km returndistance

40 minutestime

Acres Lake to Leitrim Village (Blueway) The Lough Allen Blueway path runs from Acres Lake along the canal and river down to Leitrim Village. Flat and well-surfaced, popular with cyclists. Walk one way and arrange a lift back, or cycle the loop. Quiet, watery, very Leitrim.

~7 km one waydistance

1.5-2 hours walkingtime

Sliabh an Iarainn (Iron Mountain) A moderate climb onto the 585-metre moorland summit east of the town. Big views across Lough Allen and the county on a clear day. Boggy underfoot in places - boots and a dry forecast. Not a marked trail to the top, so go prepared.

8 kmdistance

2.5-3 hourstime

06 / 08

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

The lake and the boardwalk come into their own as the weather lifts. An Tóstal builds toward its early-June run. Quiet and green.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

The busy stretch: An Tóstal in June, the Joe Mooney Summer School in the third week of July, water activity on Lough Allen and Acres Lake. Book a bed well ahead for both festival weeks.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

Crowds gone, colour on Sliabh an Iarainn, the distillery and visitor centre still open. A good quiet time to have the boardwalk to yourself.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Short days and wet weather off the lake. The pubs and the distillery keep going, but the outdoor draws are at their least appealing. A passing stop rather than a destination.

◐ Mind yourself

07 / 08

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

If a local was sitting beside you, this is the bit where they'd lean in.

Expecting a big town

Drumshanbo is around twelve hundred people with a short main street and a couple of pubs. It punches above its weight on gin, music and festivals, but it is a small Leitrim town. Come for the lake, the mountain and the distillery, not for nightlife.

Turning up in festival week without a bed booked

An Tóstal in June and the Joe Mooney Summer School in July both fill the town. Rooms in and around Drumshanbo vanish. If you want either, book months out or stay in Carrick-on-Shannon and drive in.

Getting there.

By car

From Dublin, the N4 to Carrick-on-Shannon (about 2h 15m), then the R280 north to Drumshanbo (about 20 min). Roughly 2.5-3 hours total. The R207 and R208 are the local roads through the town.

By bus

Bus Éireann routes 462 and 469 serve the town, and Westlink Coaches runs a daily service to Sligo via Carrick-on-Shannon. Services are limited - check timetables.

By train

No station in Drumshanbo since the Cavan and Leitrim narrow-gauge line closed in 1959. The nearest railway is Carrick-on-Shannon, about 14 km south, on the Dublin-Sligo line.