Irish Whiskey, or Fuisce, is simply Whiskey made in Ireland. The word Fuisce is the modern Irish word for Uisce Beatha, which literally mean water of life, and was the name given by Irish monks in the middle ages to distilled alcohol. That probably give you an idea of how important Whiskey is in Irish culture and history. Also, the astute reader would have noticed how Whiskey resembles Fuisce. Thank the anglicization of this old word and its mispronunciation for that. 

The Irish have a long history of making whiskey, dating as far back as 1405 (a full 89 years before the Scots) and claim the oldest surviving licensed distillery in the world (Old Bushmills Distillery) to themselves. Irish Whiskey was also once the most popular in the world, and considered far superior to Scotch, which had a dubious reputation. By some accounts, the "e" in Irish Whiskey was introduced to distinguish it from the cheaper quality Scotch! Unfortunately, a war for independence from Britain, the Prohibition in the US and a lack of a bootlegging network into the US all managed to reduce Irish Whiskey distillers down to just two and production to about 500,000 cases per annum from a height of 12 million around 1900. 

Types Of Irish Whiskey

Map of Irish Whiskeys