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‘You averted your gaze walking past it’: Belfast bar that was once a feared loyalist hangout is now the pride of the community

The former Cavehill Inn, where a priest at the centre of the Holy Cross school dispute once held sensitive talks, has been transformed into a modern bar that welcomes all

Kelvin Collins, managing director of Ben Madigan's bar and kitchen, and general manager Daley Carnduff. Photograph: Stephen Davison

Seanín Graham's face
Seanín Graham
Sat Apr 27 2024 - 06:00

It was once a notorious loyalist bar at a Belfast interface that Catholics crossed the road to avoid.

When the former Cavehill Inn in north Belfast went up for sale five years ago, its windows were cracked, the roof broken and there was no heating or hot water.

“It was an eyesore. You averted your gaze walking past it and those drinking outside it were especially intimidating during marching season,” says one resident.

Today, a cleaner mops a pristine oak floor, and navy-blue parasols are open at tables on a terrace outside what is now Ben Madigan’s bar and kitchen.

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Rainbow flags fly from its new roof during Pride week, and on Easter Monday, the Abba tribute show was a sell-out.

Drag bingo, comedy nights and table quizzes have attracted both a new generation of customers and old neighbours from both communities.

This was the pub that a UK government minister took the unprecedented step of closing ahead of an Old Firm game to ease sectarian tensions in 2002.

Today, a tattered union flag on a lamp-post outside is the only reminder of the past.

The bar is at the crossroads between the nationalist Cavehill Road and unionist Westland Road. Its owner, Kelvin Collins, was driving to a summer wedding in 2019 when he spotted the “For Sale” sign.

Kelvin Collins and Daley Carnduff outside Ben Madigan's. Photograph: Stephen Davison

“Every person I spoke to said: ‘Are you mad?’ I probably was a bit mad but I knew what I was doing. I had a vision for it,” he says.

“I saw potential. I was thinking somewhere like that should be thriving in the heart of the community. It had so many things going for it. It’s an attractive building, lovely south-facing terrace ... but it had a history.”

Collins, a Catholic from Derry, has worked in hospitality since the 1990s and moved to north Belfast 13 years ago with his husband.

“When we first moved here I wouldn’t have considered the bar but time had passed and we had lived long enough in the area to know that change was happening,” he says.

“For me, the most important thing was getting people across the doorstep; once they came in, we knew we could sell it to them.”

'It was an eyesore': the former Cavehill Inn

Within a week of opening, in November 2019, the bar, which lies under landmark Cave Hill, a union flag was erected outside.

“I panicked and contacted different councillors asking what I should do. They said: ‘Whatever you do, don’t take it down’, as it would fuel the fire,” says Collins. “It bothered me for the first few weeks and then I just ignored it because customers were ignoring it.”

Manager Daley Carnduff worked seven-day weeks with Collins on the refit before opening.

In an area synonymous with paramilitaries – a loyalist brigadier was a regular at the Cavehill Inn – another local business owner says the pub’s redevelopment has led to cultural change.

Jim and Claire Mallon opened an artisan coffee shop two years ago a short distance away. They had taken out a lease on premises four doors up but decided to pull out before opening a decade ago.

“If I had opened that shop back then, I would probably have been paying protection money – that’s the reality of it. Once Kelvin opened the bar, it completely transformed the whole row,” says Jim.

When it was mooted as somewhere to go for lunch, I actually thought the guys were having a laugh. I wasn’t aware of all the changes

Last month, a priest had his lunch in Ben Madigan’s for the first time, more than 20 years after he met loyalist paramilitaries for “sensitive negotiations” in the Cavehill Inn at the height of the Holy Cross school dispute.

“It was more like a glorified shebeen. I remember there not being an awful lot of light,” says Fr Gary Donegan, who played a central role in resolving the dispute that made international headlines.

“I frequented the bar recently because we had work done to the kitchen in our new monastery. When it was mooted as somewhere to go for lunch, I actually thought the guys were having a laugh. I wasn’t aware of all the changes.

“To think that Passionists [his congregation] were eating in what was the Cavehill Inn 23 years after being thrust into Holy Cross blockade – that’s about as seismic a change that you could possibly think of,” he says.

Cavehill resident Sinéad Larkin agrees; she compares it to the vibe she has experienced visiting her sister-in-law in Dún Laoghaire, or on the Lisburn Road in south Belfast.

“We’re entitled to that,” she says. “I’ll tell you what’s nice about it: it’s normality, something that we in the North have not been used to and haven’t benefited from.”

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