Exterior Front

For at least two centuries, Donaghadee served as the Irish terminus of the sea passage with Scotland.  This was mainly because it was a 'safe haven' only twenty miles from the Scottish shore and clearly visible on a good day.

Even before the official Plantation began in 1610, there was already a steady influx of Scots crossing to Donaghadee to begin new lives as part of the 1606 settlement of Sir Hugh Montgomery and Sir James Hamilton – a period known as “the dawn of the Ulster-Scots”.