Kellys Complex

When Radio 1 DJed in Antrim

In September 1997, the BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix was broadcast live from Lush!, the dance floor at Kellys in Portrush. Pete Tong and Col Hamilton started a tradition that turned a familiar North Coast venue into a stop on the international circuit. Every Saturday, the town filled with clubbers arriving from Belfast, Derry, and the rest of Northern Ireland: they weren't going to a capital city, they were going to a club.

Lush!, the electronic flag of the venue

Lush! was born on March 17, 1996, St. Patrick's Day, inside Kellys. Hamilton, resident and programmer, established a policy of house, progressive, techno, and trance that brought in Sasha, John Digweed, Tiësto, Armin van Buuren, Paul van Dyk, Fatboy Slim, Calvin Harris, Judge Jules, Dave Seaman, and Deep Dish. In 2006, DJ Mag placed Lush! at number 24 in the world, explicitly based at Kellys; in 2008 the venue reappeared as Kelly's at 56; in 2010, at 48. Seb Fontaine went as far as to say he hadn't found that atmosphere anywhere else. A 2016 refit, led by Light and Sound FX, installed an EAW Avalon system and a Marveon LED screen above the stage, with PR Lighting moving heads.

Harmony, before the orange circle

Kellys didn't start with the house music of the nineties. James Kelly and Desmond Kelly organized barn dances in a shed on the family farm in the late sixties; 1969 is the year the venue itself celebrates as its origin. In the nineties, the Harmony nights—promoted by Ian Robertson and Tony Cochrane—filled the same address during the Northern Irish conflict. Carl Cox DJed there in 1993 and 1995. Harmony was not the name of the building; it was proof that the bricks of Kellys were already a rave destination before Lush!.

The site remains; the weekly Saturday does not

In March 2021, owner Peter Wilson closed Lush! as a weekly nightclub: the club model, he said, was no longer sustainable in that format. The brand went on tour; the complex was reoriented towards family leisure, a hotel, and events. The current dance floor space is The Barn, with a capacity of over 450 people, a stage, a DJ booth, and an outdoor bar. The documentary Lush! Lives premiered there in 2024, and for the 30th anniversary of that club, names like Deep Dish and Eddie Halliwell have returned. Surrounding it are the 23-room Golflinks Hotel, the Deerstalker, the Kon Tiki, The White Pheasant, and more than 600 homes in the Golflinks park. The Saturday pilgrimage is no longer weekly; the venue, more than half a century later, remains the physical place that the North Coast associates with that night.