Belfast and County Down Railway - Steamships

Steamships

The BH&BR Act of 1881 authorised that company not only to have a railway built between Holywood and Bangor but also to run steamships "for the purpose of establishing an improved and efficient communication between Belfast, Holywood and Bangor". The BH&BR did not exercise this power, but several years after it had been taken over by the B&CDR the latter company started running scheduled passenger steamship services on the route.

The B&CDR took advice from the Glasgow and South Western Railway (G&SWR), which had been running passenger paddle steamers since 1891. For the 1893 season the G&SWR had ordered a new ship, PS Minerva, to be built by J&G Thomson at Clydebank. The two railways then ordered from Thomson's two sister ships of a slightly revised design: PS Glen Rosa for the G&SWR and PS Slieve Donard for the B&CDR. Thomson's launched Slieve Donard on 20 May 1893 and she entered service between Belfast's Donegall Quay and Bangor on 20 June. She was named after Slieve Donard, the highest peak in the Mourne Mountains in County Down.

In October 1893 the B&CDR ordered a slightly larger paddle steamer, PS Slieve Bearnagh, named after Slieve Bearnagh, the second-highest peak in the Mourne Mountains. She made her first voyage on Belfast Lough on 1 May 1894. Donard and Bearnagh worked between Donegall Quay and Bangor, between them providing six sailings per day from Mondays to Saturdays and five on Sundays. From Mondays to Saturdays one mid-afternoon sailing per day extended around the coast to Donaghadee. On Saturday afternoons other sailings continued from Bangor across Belfast Lough to Larne.

Later that summer a local steamer line, the New Belfast, Bangor and Larne Steamboat Company, went into liquidation and the B&CDR bought two of its ships, PS Bangor Castle and PS Erin, from the receivers. These ships were older and smaller than those that Thomson had supplied, and the B&CDR seems to have made little use of them. Bangor Castle had been on charter to the Southampton, Isle of Wight and South of England Royal Mail Steam Packet Company since 1888 and was scrapped in 1899.

In 1899 the railway sold Slieve Donard to Alexander Campbell, co-founder of the P&A Campbell pleasure steamer company. Slieve Bearnagh remained with the B&CDR, occasionally making excursions to Portaferry on the Ards Peninsula, Ardglass in south Down, and Larne and Portrush on the coast of County Antrim in addition to her regular scheduled route on Belfast Lough.

At the end of the 1911 sumer season the B&CDR put Slieve Bearnagh up for sale and ordered a new paddle steamer, again slightly larger than her predecessors. A&J Inglis of Pointhouse, Glasgow launched the new ship, PS Erin's Isle, on 12 June 1912 and fitted her out in less than a month. On 19 June 1912 the railway sold Slieve Bearnagh to D&J Nicol of Dundee for service on the east coast of Scotland. Erin's Isle was in B&CDR service from 12 July 1912 until her fourth summer season ended on 29 September 1915. On 20 November 1915 the Admiralty requisitioned her for £400 per month to be a Royal Navy minesweeper. On 7 May 1919 she was sunk by a mine, for which the Admiralty paid £53,676 compensation. However, the railway found that a new ship would cost £64,000 and decided not to return to owning steamships.