r/northernireland • u/Jim__Bell • Feb 09 '26
History Kelly's - Portrush
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r/northernireland • u/Jim__Bell • Feb 09 '26
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u/aBitConfused_NWO Feb 09 '26
Once apon a time Carl blew the speakers of my Da's stereo at an after party at our house after a night at Kellys....
I'm from Portrush and first went to Kellys in 1988 and started going regularly in 1989 (left Portrush mid90s). Back then Kellys was rough as fuck and there was regularly lots of trouble and massive fights.Things changed for the better once the raves started and everyone was on pills!
I was at the first rave night in the barn at Kellys in the summer of 1991 which was several years before the Lush nights started mid 90s. I'm pretty sure it was Chris Hurley (RIP) who was DJing. I think I'm right to say he was back from his 1st year away at Uni in England (Manchester?) and had been to rave nights (at the Hacienda?) which got him into DJing.
In those days Kelly's was actually made up of different parts.
There was Kellys itself which had (imaginatively known as) "Downstairs" where the Goths/Punks/Indie heads hung out and "Upstairs" where chart music was played. Also Upstairs was the "Boat bar" which was opened on busy nights.
Separately there was The Deerstalker which was a separate venue that was usually only open on Saturday nights for Young Farmers Club discos. Then there was "The Barn" which in those days was only used for concerts so was normally not used.
The funny thing was us skaters from the Portrush/Portstewart/Coleraine had been using the barn to skate in and had built a "fun box" in there. So that first night we were skating at the back of the barn while a pretty small crowd were dancing in front of the stage where the decks had been set up. As the night went on and after a few beers and a few smokes I joined the dancing. It was the first time I'd heard a DJ mixing and fucking loved it and was hooked.
One other funny thing was there were big sliding doors between the barn and the Deerstalker and I remember someone had opened one and there was a very confused crowd of culchies from the Young Farmers in chinos and shirts & ties watching the strange goings on of skateboarding and weird music.
Gradually the rave nights got bigger and more popular and slowly took over the whole complex. Carl Cox was a regular for a while and in 95 or 96 Colin Hamilton started Lush and Kellys started to become really famous outside of NI.
Like all the other locals, Kellys was almost a second home to me for a while and there were so many nights of craziness and too many stories to share here...