The Cave Hill

The Cave Hill is arguably Belfast’s most iconic natural landmark. Rising to a height of 1,207ft to the north of the city, the hill and caves are intricately entwined with the social and political history of the town. Once an active volcano, the hill owes its distinctive features to basalt lava flows from 65 million years ago, during the Palaeocene era.

“The Cave hill, when canopied by a serene and cloudless sky, is the most beautiful mountain in the parish. The wild thyme grows luxuriantly on its sides, which are neither dry nor marshy, but in most places, except where imbrowned with heath, smooth and verdant”

George Benn, History of the Town of Belfast, 1823

Ben Madigan, Napolean’s Nose and McArt’s Fort

The Cave Hill was originally known as Ben Madigan, in Irish Beann Mhadagain (Madigan’s Peak), after Matudan mac Muiredaig, a 9th century king of Ulster. This is reflected in the nearby street names.

Locally the hill is often referred to as Napolean’s Nose, as the cliff face was said to resemble the profile of the French emperor. This aspect of the Cave Hill also supposedly, provided Johathan Swift with the inspiration for Gulliver’s Travels.

In 1708, Dr Thomas Molyneaux, in his travel diary described the Cave Hill-

“Here they carried us up a pretty high Hill, where is a very pleasant Fountain, well shaded with Trees, and from whence you have a very fine Prospect of Carrickfergus, the Bay, and Belfast, which from hence makes a very good shew”.

Dr Thomas Molyneaux, 1708

The Cave Hill has a long history of human habitation and the remains of raths, cairns and cattle pens can still be seen. At its peak is the iron-age ringfort known as McArt’s Fort (see link to “The Cave Hill, McArt’s Fort” below). The caves on the upper slopes are famous for their association with the United Irishmen.

Cave Hill Industry and Leisure

As well as providing food, fresh water springs and pasture, the Cave Hill was the site of iron mining and limestone quarrying. The route over the hill was also a short-cut to the outlying areas of north Belfast and further afield.

However, the hill also served another function. For the inhabitants of Belfast and the surrounding areas, the slopes of the Cave Hill were a welcome, free pleasure ground to escape the crowded streets and the polluted atmosphere of the rapidly expanding industrial town.

“The good people of Belfast and the neighbouring country, who are disposed to forego for one day the toils and cares of this busy world, have selected, from time immemorial, the Cave Hill as the scene of their convivial sports”

George Benn. History of the Town of Belfast, 1823

We are told folk ascended the slopes of the hill on Sundays (presumably on dry days) in their best clothes and with picnic baskets to ‘take the air’. On special days, Easter Monday being the most popular, the Cave Hill would be crowded.

“Families equipped themselves for a whole day in food and refreshment, with rugs and shawls and dyed hard boiled eggs for trindling in abundance”

Francis Joseph Bigger 17th April 1925

Tents would be pitched offering refreshments and entertainment. The tent ground was about 100 perches above the well. These tents were installed with wooden floors for dancing. Meanwhile military bands marched and played. We can imagine the excitement of young people dressed ‘to the nines’ and families with children enjoying this special day out. Races and competitions were held, with the young men often vying with each other to see who could climb the highest. Many people, even ladies in long dresses, climbed to McArt’s Fort!

“The proximity of the Cave Hill to Belfast, like Arthur’s seat to Edinburgh, is associated with the town, commanding an excellent view of land and water. On the evening of the Prince of Wales’s wedding day, a hundred tar barrels were carried to the top of the hill, and when lighted, the effect, even in the streets of Holywood, was very great. At this time the white duck trousers appeared to be indispensable for the Cave hill on Easter Monday”

Thomas Gaffikin, Belfast Fifty Years Ago, 1875

The Volunteers Well

The main route of access to the Cave Hill from the Shore Road district, was along Gray’s Lane (Loney), and up the slope by the deer park to the ‘Volunteers’ Well‘ and then (for the energetic) to McArt’s Fort.

The well was so named as the 18th century voluntary militia when training on the Cave Hill would stop here to quench their thirst. The local historian Robert M Young wrote in 1896

“…the spring known afterwards as the Volunteers’ Well, and resorted to on Easter Monday long ago, when the townspeople flocked to the Cave Hill in thousands”.

Andrew Nash and Joseph Magill

However, in the mid-19 century an event happened to put all this merriment in jeopardy. It involved the aspirations of an ambitious property developer named Joseph Magill.

Joseph was the son-in-law of Andrew Nash, the principal landowner on the Cave Hill. Nash was a naval officer from County Cork in the south of Ireland. While on contraband duty in Belfast, he and his comrades often walked on the Cave Hill in their leisure hours. On one of these jaunts, he met Sarah Orr who had inherited some 188 acres of land on the hill.

Andrew and Sarah were wed in 1817. The land Nash acquired through the marriage was not particularly fertile, though he did try to make it more profitable by grazing cattle and quarrying limestone.

He also updated the Orr home by adding an upper storey and improved the mountain paths. Some gates were added but this was only to prevent cattle straying onto the Antrim Road.

However, Andrew Nash was not a farmer by nature and later accounts paint him as enjoying a more leisurely lifestyle. As the only Catholic landowner in the region, Nash was seen as an outsider.

“(Nash) was not of a productive nature but rather given to sport and a richer way of living than was usual in increasing households with diminishing resources”

Francis Joseph Bigger 1925

Joseph Magill and the Cave Hill ‘Opportunity’

In 1849, Joseph Magill married Agnes Nash, second daughter of Andrew and Sarah. Joseph was an up and coming businessman, who had made his wealth in South America.

He certainly had no sentimental attachment to the Cave Hill or its traditions. Instead, he saw it as a lucrative series of building plots.

“To Magill certainly must go the credit, or discredit, of aspiring to be the upper Antrim Road’s first speculative builder. In the early 1850’s Belfast’s continuing growth was creating an expanding market for suburban merchant villas, and the Nash’s otherwise barren land offered a convenient and romantic setting for any such development”

John Gray, The Great Cave Hill Right of Way Case, 2010

Magill built a substantial and imposing house complete with a high tower, for himself and his family on the slopes of the hill. This he named ‘Marlett Towers’ after his father-in-law’s heraldry. Along with this he constructed a gatehouse to his grounds. It was the position of this gatehouse that was to cause the problem. He built it literally across the public access lane to the Cave Hill.

Commencement of the Cave Hill Dispute

What Mr Magill seemingly didn’t realise was the importance of the Cave Hill to the residents of Belfast, and not only to ordinary folk but to the local gentry also.

On 3rd January 1856 Magill was with his father-in-law when he received a letter from Mr James Grimshaw.

James Grimshaw

The Grimshaw family were well-known and respected landowners who were involved in the textile industry. James owned a dyeworks at Whitehouse as well as lands around Whitehouse village on the Shore Road.

The Grimshaw’s lived in a mansion called Longwood in the shadow of the Cave Hill. (This is now the site of the Abbeycentre shopping mall). The Grimshaws regularly enjoyed outings on the mountain.

“One of our correspondents states that on an Easter Monday fête on the Cave Hill, when he was a boy, he recollects the Grimshaws were represented that day by forty individuals of the name”

George Benn A History of the Town of Belfast Vol 2 1880

Indeed, James’s son, also called James, was a keen Irish naturalist, who wrote many scientific papers on botanical subjects, including Flora of the Cave Hill.

Joseph Magill’s Response

However, Joseph Magill seems to have been an impetuous, perhaps even arrogant, man. Instead of responding civilly to Grimshaw’s missive, he is said to have angrily thrown the letter out of the window.

“Joseph Magill may have soared high, but his fundaments were defective when he set about destroying the public rights and enjoyments of the Cave Hill”

Belfast Telegraph 25th April 1825

Increasing Opposition to the Closure of the Path

Facing such intransigence, James Grimshaw, aged 87, and sixty-eight other concerned citizens formed the ‘Association for the Protection of Public Rights of Way‘.

It would have served Magill well to be wary, for this was not an organisation of ordinary city folk but of Belfast gentry. An initial donation of £5 and an annual subscription of 10 shillings, shows that these were men of some wealth with a knowledge of political and legal manoeuvres.

Samuel Getty, the Lord Mayor, was president with James Grimshaw as vice-president. The membership also included two members of parliament and Charles Duffy, the assistant County Surveyor. The Association also had the support of the earl of Donegall.

Subsequently, Getty and Duffy visited Mr Magill at Marlett Towers and explained their position. Magill curtly referred them to his solicitor Mr Samuel Brice.

The Cave Hill Trial

With no solution or compromise ‘on the table’, the Rights of Way Association took Magill to court on the offence of obstructing a public highway. The case was heard at the County Antrim Spring Assises.

Joseph Magill was found guilty.

However, this was not the end of the matter. Mr Magill entered an ‘order of certiorari’ for the case to be reviewed at the Court of the Queen’s Bench before a Select Jury.

The proceedings commenced on Tuesday 3rd August 1859. The trial was held in Belfast before Chief Baron Pigot. Mr Macdonagh QC and Mr Harrison appeared for the prosecution. Counsel for the defence was Mr Andrews QC. The foreman of the all-male jury was Edward Harris Clarke. The indictment contained several counts, the first being

‘For obstructing a certain common Queen’s highway leading from Whitehouse or shore road, over certain lands to a well called ‘The Volunteers’ Well’ and then continuing as a common footpath leading from this well to the Cave Hill by building a porter’s lodge and putting up embankments’

Magill pleaded not guilty.

The trial was a talking point throughout the town and the courtroom was packed.

“A whole gallery was set apart for the accommodation of the ladies, and it was sometimes quite inadequate for the purpose”

Belfast Newsletter 9th August 1859

The Prosecution Case

The prosecution case rested on proving the free access to the Cave Hill from “time immemorial”, not just for pleasure but for travel and work. They called several witnesses, the first was the venerable Mr James Grimshaw.

Giving evidence Mr Grimshaw stated that he knew the road from the Shore Road over the Cave Hill, it had existed long before the Antrim Road was constructed. He had travelled the road many times on horseback to get to his bleach greens in Glenavy. He knew that people cut turf from the bog on the far side of the Cave Hill and brought it on donkeys and creels to Greencastle via the road.

“I have seen hundreds and thousands of people going up that road to the Cave Hill in old times; and I never knew of them to be obstructed, down to the time Mr Magill built this house across the road”

Mr James Grimshaw., Northern Whig 4th August 1859

Alexander McGee testified that he lived on the Cave Hill where it adjoins Squire’s Hill and that he used the road frequently without hindrance.

George Russel, aged 78, lived in the townland of Ballyaghan and had travelled the road for over 60 years to bring turf to Greencastle.

James Seaton (72), used the road to travel to and from his home in Collinward.

James Hamilton, a carpenter aged 67 also used the road regularly…

“Has seen people go on cars and on foot at all times of the year. Never knew any person prevented….The hill was a general resort on Sunday evenings”

Northern Whig 5th August 1859

Robert Walker lived in Whitehouse and managed the dye-works. He used the road often over the last 27 years to visit the Oldpark Print Works…

“Has seen upwards of 5,000 on the hill on Easter Mondays. Has known picnic parties on the hill, and they have very often taken their cars as far as the well”

Northern Whig 5th August 1859

One of the most important witnesses for the prosecution was architect Robert Young. He was born in Whiteabbey in 1822 and while attending Belfast Academy, studied geology on the Cave Hill.

He was employed by Magill in 1855 and noted to his employer the importance of the public path which was between 10 and 15ft wide in places. Erroneously he thought Magill concurred.

Young and many others were particularly unhappy about the historic Volunteers’ Well, being enclosed in a yard and covered over.

“The enclosure of the well did not affect the right of way by any path, but for a mid-nineteenth century jury, still with sentimental memory of the Volunteers, and perhaps their own visits to the well, it must have seemed an act of vandalism, and helped to colour their views on the right of way question, where Magill was in any case on very weak ground”

John Gray, The Great Cave Hill Right of Way Case, 2010

The Defence Case

The defence, obviously, had a different outlook. Andrew Nash asserted that as landowner, only those who had applied for and been granted admission were permitted on the hill. He claimed that he was delighted to allow “persons of a respectable class coming up” but “potential troublemakers” were excluded.

Mr Patrick McHale, Nash’s tenant who lived in a cottage at Whitewell Quarry, testified that he had had occasion to drive trespassers and poachers off the land.

However, on being questioned, McHale did admit to seeing regular visitors at the well enjoying their “eatables and drinkables”. He also “did little kindnesses for them” by boiling water, peas and beans for them. This normal acceptance by Nash’s tenants to seeing picnickers on the hill did not help the defence’s case at all.

“I never corrected these, for they were stealing nothing. They were civil people”

Indeed, as Patrick also told the court, the McHales actually profited from the day trippers in that his wife Biddy “used to sell a little drop here”. Apparently, it was well known that Mrs McHale would sell poteen to the visitors.

Mr Brewster, counsel for Magill, argued that the road could not be considered a Queen’s highway, since there was no provision for maintenance. In an attempt to worry the landowning classes he also claimed that the Right of Way Association would not be satisfied with just the road but wanted the freedom to roam wherever they pleased.

The Verdict

The jury withdrew for a total of 40 minutes, their verdict –

“The defendant is guilty of stopping a right of way on an ancient footpath…..”

The decision was met with widespread approval.

“There never was a trial before a court in which the evidence was more completely plain. And all on one side, than it was in this case. That side was the side of the injured, bereaved and insulted public”

Northern Whig 9th August 1859

Local folk were ecstatic, that their way of life had been upheld by the courts for once.

“There were wild scenes on the Cave Hill that long sultry summer evening when the verdict became known. All Greencastle turned out, and any old resident knows what that means, for they were a noisy and motley crowd”

F J Bigger 17th April 1925

“The public have had an undoubted triumph. The working classes of this great community, when wearied by the labours of the factory or the shop, may freely ascend the hill to breathe the pure air and learn to admire the beauties of creation”

Belfast Newsletter 9th August 1859

Joseph Magill’s Response

However, Joseph Magill was not what is known as a ‘good loser’. He prevaricated and came up with a number of excuses, including disputes with the ‘in-laws’, to avoid complying with the requirements of the verdict. The Rights of Way Association were willing to compromise but it was only when they threatened more court action, did Magill concede. He also had to pay court costs.

Mr Magill improved the footpath up to the fort and it was agreed that the offending gatehouse could remain, so long as a road was constructed along side it for public access to the Cave Hill.

However, while ‘sticking to the letter of the law’ Joseph Magill did display a certain vindictiveness. On each side of the pathway, he had wooden, tarred fences constructed, so that the view was obstructed for those using the path.

An English tourists, named Templar, wrote to the Belfast Newsletter to complain of this eyesore.

“…through a steep and narrow passage, guarded all the way by palisading, breast high, composed of timber, which, by some diabolical process unknown, I should hope, in any other part of the kingdom, was covered with pitch or tar……Down this horrid lane we descended, mud underneath, pitch and tar to the right and left. Our sufferings were, as you may fancy, truly horrible”

Belfast Newsletter 29th August 1861

Mr Templar ends his letter with a plea

The following year, just before the Easter festivities, Magill had these fences and rails repainted with tar, so they were still wet and sticky when folk arrived on the hill.

A local newspaper sarcastically commented. that –

“The hill would swarm with people on Easter Monday. The day might probably be warm, and why not have a fresh supply of the tar on every hand-rail? The idea was munificent; and so on Thursday and Friday last – and Friday was Good Friday too – Mr Magill had an ample coat of the pleasant compound placed upon the rails, as if to show that he too can rail against the world “

Belfast Newsletter 24th April 1862

The End of Joseph Magill

Joseph Magill however, was to suffer his own downfall in the following decades. Due to the economic depression of 1873, his companies were in severe financial difficulties. In 1875 his print works at Whitewell went bankrupt. Magill had to mortgage his home and his lands on the Cave Hill and Greencastle to the Northern Bank.

“The Magill regime was a short one – about 20 years it lasted. The roof of the tower was only greening, the marletts were not over-familiar with the eves, the massive mahogany furniture neither scuffed nor worn, the heavy rep curtains had never faded when the crash came and Magill was a bankrupt”

Belfast Telegraph 17th April 1925

The Cave Hill Right of Way Restored

After Joseph Magill’s death in 1882, his Cave Hill property was bought by the Donegall’s and added to the Belfast Castle demesne. A final symbol of the Magill fall from grace, was that their prestigious Marlett Towers home was used to house the gardeners and estate workers. Subsequently it fell into disrepair and was burned down in 1957.

In 1934 the Shaftsbury’s of Belfast Castle, who had married into the Donegall family, granted the castle and its lands to Belfast Council for free use of the public (see related post on Belfast Castle, Cave Hill).

The Cave Hill Right of Way trial was a landmark case for the citizens of Belfast and its districts. It showed what an organised and dedicated group of people can achieve and that wrongs can be righted!

“It is a victory that deserves to be marked because the Association was the first of its kind in the Belfast area, and because it laid the basis for public access to the Cave Hill for the future. Even today landowners in Northern Ireland continue to strenuously resist public access to the countryside, including much of the Belfast Hills area, it remains a salutary tale”

John Gray, The Great Cave Hill Right of Way Case, 2010

Further Information

For further information see John Gray, The Great Cave Hill Right of Way Case (2010) and local newspapers held in the Newspaper Library with Belfast Central Library, Royal Avenue.

Related Posts

The Cave Hill, McArt’s Fort, Games & Thrones, the Sleeping Giant and more

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Belfast Castle, Cave Hill, Belfast

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