The rise and fall of cavan cola

Damian McCarney

Sitting in a leather armchair, in his cosy Moynehall livingroom, Desmond Coulter recalls the day he and his brother signed away the business that his father co-founded. 

“I’d say it was the worst day in my life,” Des offers in his careful, unhurried delivery.
It was September 1993 when he sat in an office on Church Street, along a solicitor and an accountant, and his big brother Brendan, and resigned himself to the inevitable. Finches had put an offer on the table for Cavan Mineral Waters (CMW), the company which produced Cavan Cola. As Des recalls it, C&C had previously expressed an interest, but they were all-consumed by the multi-million euro takeover of Ballygowan and shelved their CMW plans. Des harboured hopes that upon settling the Ballygowan deal, a bidding war between C&C and Finches could yet fizz up.
“They paid something like £13 or 14 million for Ballygowan - I know that we would have got a far better deal from C&C,” laments Desmond.
However, as of September 1993, there was only one bid in the offing.
“My brother Brendan, the documents were presented to him to sign, which he did, and then it was put in front of me.
“Before I signed it I said, 'I know I’m going to regret this for the rest of my life.’ I signed it, and I couldn’t control myself, my tears came, and everybody was trying to console me. They all knew that this was my life. I said, I was somebody, and I was now nobody - just like that, by signing a document; signing it over to Finches.
“It hit me whenever I was signing it, and the tears... I never cried ever in my life, and yet the tears just flowed and I couldn’t stop crying. A solicitor was there and she was trying to console me, and I had to go outside and sit in the car for about half an hour before I could go on with it. To me it was like I was after dying, or my best friend was after dying. To me it was the worst thing that could ever happen me. Really it just ended my life.”
Asked why he went through with the sale, Des said that amongst other reasons, the selling process had commenced and it was hard to back out of it.

Stable
The wrench this sale presented and the sentimentality Des attached to the company was understandable, as his late father, John Coulter had started the CMW company. A Newry man, John, like so many others, was immersed in the traumatic conflict almost a century ago from which the State finally emerged.
“He was, I suppose you could say - back in 1918-21 - it would have been 'a terrorist’,” says Des with a wry smile. “He was a member of, I think it was the 3rd Northern Division, and he was under Frank Aiken (senior IRA leader, Fianna Fáil founding member, and later Táinaste) who he knew very well.”
In civilian life, John’s first job was as a teacher in the Abbey CBS Newry, but “he left in disgust”, apparently over how the brothers disciplined pupils. Upon leaving the school he became a junior clerk with Newry Mineral Water Company. Minerals were a thriving industry at the time, and most major towns had at least one soft drinks company. Having found his calling, after just three years John had risen through the ranks to become manager. Armed with this experience, he crossed the recently drawn border and, along with John McShane, founded the Cavan Mineral Water Company at the rear of what is now the Farnham Hotel on Cavan’s Main Street.
“He started back in 1927 and he had less than £300 in his pocket when he came to Cavan and started the Cavan Mineral Water Company. He started at the back of the Farnham Hotel in a stable, and he used to say, 'Well it wasn’t the first good thing that was started in a stable’.”
John Coulter also founded, along with other smaller companies, the Soft Drink and Beer Bottlers Association (SDBBA) to compete with larger mineral companies. It was a discussion at a meeting of the association in 1947 which sparked the creation of Cavan Mineral Water’s most cherished drink - Cavan Cola. World War II had already seen Coca-Cola spread its sphere of influence into Europe to quench the thirst of US troops, and in 1947 it was announced at a SDBBA meeting that Coca-Cola was coming to Ireland.
“It was also stated that of all the soft drinks that were made in America, Coca-Cola controlled more than 50%. The question was, what would happen when they came to Ireland? Would they wipe out the local companies? So my father decided he’d produce a cola.
“He’d never tasted cola. He sent away to suppliers for samples for cola essence - a lot of them didn’t know what they were doing. So this essence that he bought from a particular company, he liked. But he’d never tasted Coca-Cola or Pepsi.”
That was in 1948, and he had beaten both the American cola giants to the punch in Ireland.
“I would describe it as the real cola taste,” Desmond says with a chuckle. “Whenever people got Pepsi or Coca-Cola for the first time they’d say - that’s not cola. Cavan Cola’s cola.”
Produced at their premises - the former Boys National School beside Breffni Park - that distinctive taste of Cavan Cola won a loyal place in the sticky palms of kids across the county, and neighbouring counties in the Republic.

Guinness head
It wasn’t just the cola’s taste that proved popular.
“It’s appearance was it’s big selling point - it poured out like a bottle of Guinness and looked like a bottle of Guinness.”
He recalls having to extinguish a rumour a friend of his was spinning that one of his female teachers, a Ms Fox, was spotted in Cavan Golf Club sipping a stout.
“In 1948 this was an awful crime - a woman sitting up at a bar drinking a glass of Guinness. I knew it wasn’t Guinness at all, it was Cavan Cola.”
The Celt urges Des to be honest - did he like the taste of Cavan Cola?
After a few seconds’ hesitation, he confesses: “I’d say it wasn’t my favourite drink. We had a lovely drink called [Cavan] Traditional Lemonade - it was a cloudy lemonade, and it was absolutely beautiful.”
However, he stresses that Des would choose Cavan Cola above any other cola. A scan through the Celt’s archive confirmed this Cavan lemonade was awarded a gold medal at a prestigious competition in Britain and Ireland in April 1992. Just over a year later the company would no longer be in the Coulters’ hands.
With John having passed away in 1979, the company was passed on to Brendan and Desmond. Desmond estimates CMW had a turnover of £8m per annum in 1993, and employed about 60 people, 45 in Cavan and a further 15 in City Mineral Water Company, the distribution limb which he had established in Dublin. Des says he can’t put a figure on what the companies were sold for, but by the time debts with suppliers were settled, there wasn’t much left to divvy out.
“This is hard to believe but this is absolutely true... when the accounts were all paid there was less than £200,000 left. Unbelievable!”

Rebuild
However it wasn’t the money that left the worst taste in his mouth.
“To me it was my life. I was so happy there, I never thought that things would ever change. When the place closed, to me it came as a terrible blow.”
Thankfully Des was able to rebuild his life. Having already bought his first plot of land in 1980, after CMW closed he devoted his time to beef farming, breeding limousin cattle.
“The farm saved my life because I discovered another world out there, that I never knew existed.”
Over the years he amassed 51 acres on the outskirts of Cavan Town, and in 2005 he sold the lot for a tidy sum.
So how does he feel that over two decades after the company was sold over, that a campaign led by The Anglo-Celt and Taste of Cavan has revived such interest in Cavan Cola?
“I have an open mind about it,” he says. “Nostalgia is great, and it’s nice to look back on a business that was successful that my father built from nothing.”