The picturesque County Down port of Donaghadee was once renowned as the 'gateway to Ulster'. Russian Archdukes, literary luminaries like Keats and Boswell, and penniless migrants by the thousand all fetched up at its quay.

Then, abruptly, in 1849, the passengers stopped coming. Faced with almost certain bankruptcy, the town's energetic burghers swapped their cutters and chandleries for candy floss and kiss-me-quick hats, and turned the gritty port into a mini tourist mecca.

This book recalls the once bustling port's halcyon days. We learn of its inglorious brush with the slave trade, of the mercurial rise of its embroidery industry, and of the impact of the 1798 Rebellion. We read of heroic rescues, catastrophic shipwrecks, and of the part the town played in the UVF gun-running of 1914, when policemen turned their faces to the pier wall so that they could truthfully say they had seen nothing.

This entertaining, insightful, and beautifully illustrated book brings Donaghadee's history to life.

The publishers would like to thank Ards Borough Council, Gordons Chemists, Muir Higginson, William Montgomery & Nicholas Day, and Pier 36 for their generous sponsorship of this book.