For a small seaside town, Portrush punches well above its weight musically — thanks largely to one ballroom, and the people who passed through it.
“The Ballroom of Romance”
The Arcadia began as the Ladies’ Bathing Place café, growing through the early 20th century into a proper venue. In 1953, English entrepreneur Bert Blundell added a new ballroom, and that summer the Dave Glover Orchestra — led by Belfast-born trumpet player Dave Glover — became the resident band, staying for the next decade. In 1956 Glover introduced a 20-minute costumed sketch segment into the act and renamed the group the Dave Glover Showband, creating a genre of entertainment that drew thousands from across Ireland and beyond, and earned the ballroom its enduring local nickname: “The Ballroom of Romance.” Many romances really did begin there, with dancing typically running from 9pm to 1am nightly through the season.
The band split in 1963; Glover formed a new touring lineup as the Dave Glover Showband and undertook two full North American tours in the 1960s. He kept performing into his eighties, and his last Portrush gig — a packed house at the Northern Counties Hotel — came shortly before his death in April 2009.
A brush with punk history
The Arcadia’s later life brought a genuinely surprising footnote to Irish music history: The Undertones performed there just a week before the release of their breakout single “Teenage Kicks” — meaning one of the most influential Irish punk singles ever recorded had its live debut, in effect, on a Portrush stage.
Barry’s own star
James Nesbitt OBE — the actor known for Cold Feet and The Hobbit trilogy, where he played Bofur — grew up working at Barry’s Amusements as a bingo caller and brakeman on the Big Dipper before going on to a major international acting career, a rare and genuine “local kid made good” story tied directly to the town’s best-known landmark.
A quieter, harder story
Not every Portrush musical figure had an easy path. Mark Ashton, raised in Portrush, moved to London in 1978 and became a significant figure in 1980s LGBTQ+ activism, co-founding Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners during the 1984 miners’ strikes. He died in 1987, aged just 26, of an HIV/AIDS-related illness. His story became the subject of the acclaimed 2014 film Pride, and he’s remembered today with a blue plaque, a garden named for him in Paris, and a Communards song, “For a Friend” — a reminder that Portrush’s musical and cultural connections reach well beyond the ballroom itself.