Donaghadee: an illustrated history. By Harry Allen (Dundonald, The White Row Press 2006) 134pp, 88 colour and black and white illustrations. ISBN 1-870132-31-9. Paperback, £10.95

This volume, in the now familiar elegant format of its publisher's town histories, has been produced to mark the quatercentenary of the settlement in 1606 of Con O'Neill's lands in North Down and the Ards by the two Scottish adventurers Sir James Hamilton and Hugh Montgomery Laird of Braidstone in Ayrshire, bringing with them a migration of Presbyterians from the lowlands. Montgomery became landlord of the town and fledgling port of Donaghadee and in 1608 secured land lying around Portpatrick in Scotland. By winning royal warrants for his two ports in 1616 Montgomery effectively held the monopoly for travel between Scotland and Ulster and the harbour dues arising from it. During the Williamite campaign of 1689/90 Donaghadee became the base for naval operations and the escape route to Scotland when the Jacobites were in the ascendancy.

A shameful episode was revealed in 1739 when a local Donaghadee ship-owner and sea captain were found to have been responsible for taking 100 people forcibly from their homes in the Hebrides with the object of selling them into slavery in North Carolina. Fortunately many had managed to escape while the ship was re-victualing in Donaghadee.

There had been a mail service since the middle of the 17th century which by 1769 was in need of improved facilities: new harbours were built at both Donaghadee and Portpatrick in 1774. By the final decades of the 18th century the town was firmly established as the gateway to Ulster, and there was a very substantial export trade of cattle and horses.

The Montgomerys had become Earls of Mount Alexander in the second half of the 17th century, and when the widow of the fifth earl died in 1771 she left the Donaghadee estates to her Huguenot cousin Daniel Delacherios from Hilden, who built a new manor house in 1780. Whilst the town was to be largely developed and administered by the Delacherois family, the all-important port was the business of the Donaghadee Packet Company and its directors.

The port was seized by the United Irishmen in 1798 and for some years after the rebellion suffered a decline in trade. The deteriorating condition of the quay led to the setting up of a select committee of the House of Lords to determine the best route and terminal ports for the short sea passage. Its findings recommended the improvement of Donaghadee and Portpatrick, and a fine new harbour was built at Donaghadee between 1821 and 1836 to the design of John Rennie. This was just when steam was starting to oust sail, and in 1825 the Packet Company began running steamers to Portpatrick. It was inevitable that there should be more competition from other ports, and the old question of the most suitable North Channel route was reopened, unfortunately leading to Donaghadee's loss of the mail service to the Belfast/Glasgow route in 1849.

Strenuous local efforts were made to revive the fortunes of the port by extending the railway line from Newtownards in 1861 (a tunnel to Scotland was even mooted in 1866), but it was destined to fall back on its fishing industry and coal importing; a cottage industry like sprigging and flowering embroidery came to assume a new importance. Between 1900 and the second World War the town took on a most successful fresh identity as a summer holiday resort for the shipyard and mill-workers of Belfast, but, since the closure of the railway in 1950 and the demise of the Cyril Lord carpet factory in 1968, it has, thanks to the motor car, had to content itself as a highly desirable dormitory town for Belfast, Bangor and Newtownards. It is perhaps not widely known that, during the third Home Rule crisis in 1914, the Ulster Volunteer Force sealed off the town and landed some 76 tons of arms from Germany and Austria, in addition to the better known larger consignments brought in to Larne and Bangor.

Readers with a particular interest in the area will find a treasure-trove of sources cited in the chapter notes and bibliography.

Six famous sons of Killyleagh. By Clive Scouler (Killyleagh, Clive Scouler, 2006) [5], ii, 215pp, 23 black and white illustrations. ISBN 0-9539601-5-3. Paperback, £9.99

Strictly speaking, the subjects of these biographies are not all "sons" of Killyleagh, two of the six being associated with the town only later in their lives.

Sir Hans Sloane (1660 - 1753) left Killyleagh at the age of 19 for London where he studied medicine, eventually qualifying in 1683 after taking courses in Paris and Orange. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society at the improbably early age of 25 and its Secretary in 1693. He was able to indulge his passion for collecting natural history specimens when he became physician to the Governor of Jamaica, the Duke of Abermarle. After returning to set up his medical practice in London and marrying advantageously he became a fashionable society doctor, nevertheless always willing to provide free treatment for the needy, and was appointed physician to Queen Anne in 1712. George I made him a baronet in 1716 and for 16 years from 1719 he was the dedicated and efficient President of the College of Surgeons. He served as President of the Royal Society from 1727 until 1741. So extensive were Sloane's collections of specimens, books and antiquities that he had to rent the house next to his in Bloomsbury merely to accommodate them and to make them available for study after proper cataloguing by qualified curators. When space again ran out, the collections were removed to Sloane's 'country' house in Chelsea. After his death they were purchased by Parliamentary grant and formed, with the books and manuscripts of Sir Robert Cotton and Robert Harley, the foundation collections of the British Museum in 1759.

Sir Henry Blackwood (1770 - 1832), youngest of the eleven children of Sir John Blackwood of Ballyleidy (now Clandeboye House), was born in Killyleagh Castle, the Blackwood's second seat, and sent to join the navy as a midshipman at the tender age of ten. He experienced his first battle engagement against the French when he was only twelve. After minor commands in the North Sea and the Atlantic, his first important captaincy was in the Mediterranean, where he found himself answerable to Horatio Lord Nelson and successfully prevented the escape of the largest ship of the French fleet, which had been blockaded into Valetta harbour in Malta after the Battle of the Nile in 1800. On the eve of the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, Nelson summoned Blackwood to come over from his own vessel and join him on the flagship Victory, and he was present when Nelson died after he had been hit by an enemy sharpshooter.

Promoted Captain of the Channel Fleet in 1814, Henry was responsible for all the much-praised arrangements for the state visit to England of Tsar Alexander of Russia and King Frederick of Prussia following the Treaty of Paris. This earned him further promotion to Rear Admiral and a baronetcy. He was to hold court appointments under George III, George IV and George VI and was made a Knight of the Bath. For four years, from 1818 to 1822, he served dutifully but without enthusiasm as Commander-in-Chief, India. His final naval post was Commander-in-Chief of all naval establishments along the North Sea coast of England, including the naval dockyard at Chatham. Having maintained his family household in England throughout his career, he returned to Ballyleidy only in 1832, bringing his son who had contracted typhoid. Ironically the son improved and Sir Henry himself caught the disease and died. He was buried at Killyleagh and has a memorial in Westminster Abbey.

Henry Cooke (1788 - 1868), from Maghera in County Londonderry, served as a minister to two Presbyterian congregations in County Antrim before responding to a call from Killyleagh in 1818. Being a staunch Trinitarian, he was adamantly opposed to the unitarian views of the Arianism then threatening to split the Presbyterian Church in Ulster. His formidable pulpit oratory at the Lurgan Synod of 1829 defeated Henry Montgomery and his Arian followers, who broke away from the mainstream Presbyterianism to become the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church. In Killyleagh a curious situation had arisen whereby the local landlord, Archibald Hamilton Rowan of the Castle, was an Arian and his son a Trinitarian, but Cooke was able to carry his congregation with him in favour of orthodoxy.

Cooke, much loved, left Killyleagh in 1829 to become the first minister of the new May Street Presbyterian church in Belfast which had been specially built to accommodate his preaching talents. Almost 40 further years of intense activity within the Presbyterian Church lay ahead of him. He was Moderator on several occasions and became a professor at the Theological College.

Edward Hincks (1792 - 1866), the son of a gifted school-master who eventually became Professor of Hebrew at Queen's College in Belfast, was born in Cork. After graduating from Trinity in 1812 he was ordained in the Church of Ireland and was appointed rector of Ardtrea in County Armagh before becoming in 1825 rector of Killyleagh, where he remained for 41 years. He managed to be a conscientious pastor while at the same time devoting himself to his consuming interest in Middle Eastern languages and the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics and the cuneiform characters of Mesopotamia. His reputation became such that both transcriptions and artefacts from the exploration sites of Babylonia and Assyria and hieroglyphics from Egypt were transported to Killyleagh for his interpretation. He himself never had sufficient funds to go abroad, but he maintained a vast correspondence with fellow scholars and archaeologists in the field - outstanding figures such as Champollion, Rawlinson, Botta and Layard who had the greatest respect for his learning. He was once able to break away from his clerical duties at Killyleagh for fifteen months of employment at the British Museum in 1853/54. This gained him a small Civil List pension, and he was elected an honorary member of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1856; amongst other awards, he was appointed as Chevalier by the King of Prussia. However, he never attained in his lifetime the public honour and recognition due to him.

The remaining two Killyleagh notables chosen for inclusion are both outstanding professional footballers and still living. Terry Cochrane (b. 1953) played for Derry City, Linfield and Coleraine before transferring to Burnley and First Division Middlesborough. Internationally he appeared for Northern Ireland on 26 occasions and scored against England at Wembley in 1980, but his professional career was brought to an end by injuries in 1986, when he returned to amateur football as player, coach, manager and commentator in the North-East of England.

David Healy (b. 1979) was signed as a schoolboy recruit by Manchester United in 1994 and took an apprenticeship with the club when he was 19. However, finding himself being overlooked for selection other than as a substitute or reserve, he secured a £1.5 million transfer in 2001 to Preston North End, where he proved extremely popular, before joining Leeds United in 2004. As an international player for Northern Ireland he had by 2006 scored 19 times in 46 appearances, his finest hour considered to be a goal against England at Windsor Park in 2005.

Captain Francis Crozier, last man standing? By Michael Smith (Cork, The Collins Press, 2006) xiv, 242pp, 44 black and white illustrations. ISBN 1-905172-09-5. Hardback, £17.99

Undoubtedly the most arresting public monument in County Down is the statue standing in the centre of Church Square, Banbridge with its attendant guard of lively polar bears. Unveiled in 1862, it was erected by the rightly proud townspeople in memory of one of Britain's most pioneering, courageous and yet curiously unsung polar explorers. Although Crozier accompanied William Parry, James Ross and John Franklin on their various expeditions between 1821 and 1848 to the Arctic and Antarctic and in 1843 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society; and played a vital but tragic part in establishing the route of the North West Passage from the Bering Sea to the Pacific, unlike them he never received a knighthood, and curiously this would appear to be his first comprehensive biography.

The Crozier family from County Durham first made its appearance in Gilford in 1692, settling at Loughans (later Stramore). Francis Crozier was born in 1796, eleventh of the thirteen children of George Crozier, a successful solicitor whose increased business in Banbridge had led him to build the strikingly handsome new house, Avonmore, which still stands in the centre of the town. Francis was sent off to join the navy as a midshipman in 1810 and after eleven years of service volunteered to join Parry's second North West Passage expedition in 1821. He was to sail to the Arctic on three occasions and also voyaged to the Antarctic three times before agreeing to be second in command on what was to be the 60-year old Sir John Franklin's last expedition to find the North West Passage between 1845 and 1848: many thought that Crozier should have been the leader, but his offer of marriage to Franklin's niece had just been rejected for the second time, and he was filled with depression and self-doubt.

When, after two winters, Sir John suddenly died in 1847, Crozier assumed command, but the ice-bound ships had to be abandoned by the 105 survivors in the following year. All 129 men on the expedition perished from scurvy, the cold or lead poisoning from their tinned food and starvation. Despite numerous official and private attempts to find evidence of their fate, this did not come to light until 1859; in 1993 it was established that some of the survivors had been driven to cannibalism

Recent periodicals: selective contents lists

[Inverbrena No 11] Strangford: memories from Inverbrena, 2006 (Inverbrena Local History Group)

'Stella Maris Hall [Strangford 1926-1989]', Michael McConville [Predecessor of Inverbrena Community Centre]; 'A saintly priest from Ballyorgan', Bobby Magee [Father Patrick Magee, 1848 - 1914, curate of St Peter's, Belfast and subsequently Parish Priest of Kilcoo]; 'Bishop Sely: a man before his time' [Translation of the Archbishop of Armagh's instruction to the local church dignitaries of Lecale to apprehend the suspended and excommunicated John Sely, bishop of Down (1413 - 1441), who had been living openly with his housekeeper in Kilclief Castle, and to bring him for trial and deposition]; 'Your church', PJ Lennon [Churches, monastery, castle and leper hospital which have at various times stood within the parish of Kilclief from the early middle ages to the present]; 'Gallery' [13-page section of old photographs, 1890s - 1970s]; 'Rock scribings in Co. Down', RC Davidson [Bronze Age concentric circles scribed on rocks discovered in 1948 on Leo Laverty's farm at Ballyculter village]; 'A man of standing in 18th century Down: the life and times of Judge Michael Ward', Bill McStay; 'My solution of mysteries', EJ McMullan [Suggested origins of the names of some topographical features in Strangford village: "Royal Rocks", "Newry Quay", "The Watch House", "John's Lane" , "The Clay Hollows Brae"]; 'The Savage Armstrongs' [The poet George Francis Savage-Armstrong of the Ardkeen family, Professor of English and History at University College Cork, who retired to Strangford House in 1875; and his grandson, Major Savage-Armstrong, also of Strangford House]; 'Extracts from Home Words [and Ballyculter Parish Magazine] 1878' [Chapter 5-7 of an account of Strangford Lough].

Journal of the Upper Ards Historical Society, No 31, 2007

'Portaferry's best kept secret?', Hugh Anderson [The Greek Revival Presbyterian Church built in 1841 at the instigation of Rev. John Orr to designs by the architect John Millar]; 'The changing face of Portaferry' [Before and after photographs of several buildings]; 'Dramatic activities in the Upper Ards from the forties', Joe Gilmore [Local amateur societies and travelling companies, 1938 - 1983]; 'The old school house at Ardkeen', Rob Davison; 'The loss of the "Surcouf" of Nantes', Jim Blaney [Sailing barque which struck a reef off Tara Point in 1909, and whose salvaged timbers found many uses on surrounding farms]; 'Changing times in Portaferry'. David Dunlop [Long case clocks by four local makers, 1785 - 1858]; 'Queen's University Marine Biology Station, a personal account - plus a little science. Part 6', PJS Boaden; '20th anniversary of the Aquarium [Portaferry], Helen Challinor [Northern Ireland Aquarium, succeeded by Exploris Aquarium, 1987 - 2007]; 'Newtownards Chronicle and County Down Observer: extracts from July 1906 - June 1907', Gerard Lennon.

Saintfield Heritage, 7, 2006 (Saintfield Heritage Society)

'Reflections: the first 30 years of the Society', JR Todd; 'The governance of sport in Saintfield' [Five articles on the history of the Sports Club, the Hockey Clubs, the Cricket Club, and the Golf Club], Ronnie Fleming [and others]; 'Memories of the textile factories in Saintfield' Reggie Gibson [McCleary and Lamie and Saintfield Yarns]; 'The first health and safety prosecution in Saintfield', Desmond Greer [Unsuccessful case against Martha Clarke, a dressmaker, for allegedly requiring her female employees to work after four o'clock on a Saturday afternoon]; 'Some facts about the original Carricknaveagh school [1830 - 1942]'; 'The Strangford Stone and Saintfield'; 'Schools competition articles' [Entries from P7 pupils of Derryboy Primary School and Saintfield Academy including contributions on Sir James Martin, inventor of the aircraft ejector seat and on Laurel Hill, Ballyaughery, home of the Gillespie and Shields families]; 'The Temple weighbridge'; 'The Olivet Home for Destitute Boys and Girls, Ballygowan', Raymond Patterson; 'Saintfield in facts and figures', Desmond Greer [Analysis of statistics taken from The Northern Ireland Census 2001]; 'Arthur Brown's House', Martin Kirk and Martyn Todd [Detailed account of the contractor's costs in building house at Carricknaveagh 1910 - 1913].

Gordon Wheeler