Qualla: Donaghadee https://qualla.com/donaghadee en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:16 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/s/n/donaghadee-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Donaghadee https://qualla.com/donaghadee Donaghadee: Introduction https://qualla.com/donaghadee/ Photo credit Erl Johnston, CC BY-SA 4.0. For nearly seven decades, the daily packet boat from Donaghadee carried something more interesting than freight: runaway couples. Between 1759 and 1826, the harbour at the northeast tip of the Ards Peninsula was the launching point for Irish lovers bound for Portpatrick in Scotland, where marriage laws were lenient and questions were few. They called Portpatrick the Gretna Green for Ireland, but the romance began here, on this stretch of stone quay eighteen miles east of Belfast, where the wind off the Irish Sea has a way of making decisions feel inevitable.

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Image: Erl Johnston | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/s/n/donaghadee-wp/gcsn-donaghadee-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Donaghadee: Church of the Motte https://qualla.com/donaghadee/ Photo credit Irishdeltaforce, CC BY-SA 3.0. The name Donaghadee comes from the Irish Domhnach Daoi, which scholars have argued over for centuries. It might mean church of Daoi, after a saint nobody can confirm ever existed, or church of the motte, after the grass-covered mound that still rises at the edge of town. The mott...

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Image: Irishdeltaforce | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/s/n/donaghadee-wp/gcsn-donaghadee-church-of-the-motte.mp3 0:06 2 full Donaghadee: Scotland Was Calling https://qualla.com/donaghadee/ Photo credit Rossographer, CC BY-SA 2.0. In the early seventeenth century, Hugh Montgomery brought Scottish Protestants across the North Channel as part of the Plantation of Ulster, and Donaghadee began to grow into the town it would become. The Scottish connection never really faded. The packet boats kept running, the ...

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Image: Rossographer | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/s/n/donaghadee-wp/gcsn-donaghadee-scotland-was-calling.mp3 0:06 3 full Donaghadee: The Night the Princess Victoria Sank https://qualla.com/donaghadee/ Photo credit Eric Jones, CC BY-SA 2.0. On 31 January 1953, a storm of almost unimaginable violence tore across the Irish Sea, and the Stranraer-to-Larne car ferry MV Princess Victoria foundered in mountainous waves. The Donaghadee lifeboat, the Sir Samuel Kelly, launched into conditions that should have killed her cre...

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Image: Eric Jones | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/s/n/donaghadee-wp/gcsn-donaghadee-the-night-the-princess-victoria-sank.mp3 0:06 4 full Donaghadee: A Town That Knows Its Cameos https://qualla.com/donaghadee/ Photo credit Albert Bridge, CC BY-SA 2.0. Donaghadee photographs well, which is partly why the cameras keep arriving. The town stood in for the fictional Donaghadoo in the children's animated series Lifeboat Luke, produced by the local studio Straandlooper. Gillian Anderson came through during the filming of Robot Overlo...

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Image: Albert Bridge | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/s/n/donaghadee-wp/gcsn-donaghadee-a-town-that-knows-its-cameos.mp3 0:06 5 full