If you drive 30 km eastwards from Belfast, you will come to the peninsula ‘The Ards‘ and a small town with 7000 inhabitants called Donaghadee. That was a strange name you might think, but special names flourish in the region of County Down, since many of them come from Gaelic language. ‘Domhnach Daoi‘ has two possible meanings, either ‘Daoi’s church‘ after a now unknown saint, or ‘The church on the hill‘. The reason for placing a town here is the good harbour.
The distance to Scotland is 35 km from Donaghadee, and the town has been a transit port for Great Britain and Scotland for centuries. In 1606, Hugh Montgomery settled Scottish Protestants here, which was the start of ‘The Plantation of Ulster’, where the plan was to populate Northern Ireland with Lutheran, royalist, English-speaking inhabitants. Montgomery also developed the port and set up a trade route between Donaghadee and Scotland. Donaghadee was Northern Ireland’s most important port until 1850, more important than Belfast.
The inner part of the Donaghadee harbour is completely dry at low tide, so if you are going to swim there, you must follow the tide tables. Here, in the northern part of the Irish Sea, there is fresh and nice Atlantic water, and a swim is highly recommended. However, you should be a little careful with the tidal currents, at least outside the harbour. There is easy access to the sea, with steps down (many people walk on the beach here at low tide, with or without dogs), or you can use the boat ramp a little further north of the pier.
After a swim in Donaghadee Harbour, food and drinks might be a good idea, and we will recomend ‘Pier 36‘ pub, the setting for ‘The Commodore’ pub in the TV series Hope Street. Why did we get fascinated by this TV series? Firstly, we had already booked a Home Exchange there, before we heard about the TV series. And also, the very first episode starts with a swim race in the harbour, with the chief of police taking part in it. Of course we had to see more!
At Pier 36 there is good food and nice people, although a little less drama behind the counter when we were there than in the series. A new season has been shot and will be released in April 2025. We are looking forward to that!
