Connemara is Ireland's first modern-day peated single malt whiskey. It is made by Ireland's only independent distillery: Cooley. The Cooley distillery is Ireland's youngest working distillery, founded in the late 1980s to challenge the monopoly that Irish Distillers (owners of Midleton and, at the time, Bushmills) had created.
In a very short time Cooley Distillery has become a hugely significant player in the Irish whisky market, fending off a hostile takeover bid from Irish Distillers that would almost certainly have resulted in closure and producing a wide range of single malts (including Connemara, Locke's, Magilligan and Tyrconnell), blends (including Inishowen, Kilbeggan and Millar's) and even a single grain whiskey (the acclaimed Greenore).
