Recent PhD Graduate Students

Whiskey Historian

Dr. Fionnán O’Connor completed his of his PhD in TU Dublin on the history of lost Irish whiskey recipes in 2025 under the supervision of Dr. Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire. This research directly informed revisions to the European Union definition of Irish pot still whiskey and has been endorsed by the Irish Whiskey Association, Teagasc, and The Irish Whiskey Guild in their submissions to the Department of Agriculture Food & The Marine. Dr. O’Connor has also liaised directly with DAFM on this topic. Specifically, his research has proposed an expansion of the current definition to allow for the use, along with barley, of up to 30% oats, wheat, and rye, heritage grains once common to Irish pot still whiskey but lost after the 1970s with the decimation in distillery headcount that accompanied the twentieth-century collapse of the Irish distilling industry itself. Especially among smaller craft distilleries, these heritage recipes have created new opportunities for exploration and attachment to local provenance.

Fionnán has worked in the whiskey industry for seventeen years, both as an employee and later as an independent consultant, presenter, and critic. He has an intimate knowledge of Irish whiskey and a working relationship with most distilleries currently operating in Ireland.

His latest research project titled Créatúr is a book-length project, with twenty-four chapters that tell the history of whiskey distilling in Ireland, featuring interviews and collaborative projects with contemporary producers to explore topics in history, sustainability, and culinary innovation. Characters include distillers, farmers, maltsters, coopers, bartenders, historians, and blenders, woven into topical chapters. Créatúr builds upon the applicant’s PhD Dissertation ‘Still With Us: Formative Imperatives in the History of Material Irish Whiskey, c.1324-1980,’ https://arrow.tudublin.ie/tfschcafdoc/7/ which detailed the drink’s changing gastronomic history from the Middle Ages to the modern beverage.

In 2015, he published his first book, A Glass Apart: Irish Single Pot Still Whiskey, hailed by The Irish Times as the definitive guide to the beverage. He has written numerous articles for trade and general publications and is the Irish advisor for ‘The Council of Whisky Masters,’ the most widely accredited international independent expert panel. He sits on the advisory board of the Teagasc National Centre for Brewing and Distilling and chairs the cask selection committee of the Irish Whiskey Society, Ireland’s largest consumer enthusiast club. He has directly assisted in beverage creation projects with over ten distilleries, usually framed around historically-rooted topics.