The Mystery of Strangford Lough: A Tale of Killinchy and the Ards

The Mystery of Strangford Lough: A Tale of Killinchy and the Ards is an Ulster-Scots Gothic romance of murder, mystery, kidnap, smuggling and betrayal, coded documents, ghosts in the night, haunted rooms and castles. It was originally written by Robert Lee Moore in 1909, but is here published in book form for the very first time. The setting is the Scots-settled land around ‘Lough Cowan’ (Strangford Lough), and the period is the second generation of that settlement - the 1630s - the same decade that the Eagle Wing with its cargo of Presbyterian exiles, including Rev. John Livingstone of Killinchy, sailed for America, and when Sir Hugh Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of the Great Ardes, died at Newtownards. The heroine is Kate Savage, daughter of Philip Savage of Sketrick Castle and niece of Patrick Savage of Portaferry Castle, who is betrothed to Hugh de Montgomery of Rosemount Castle at Greyabbey. But these gentrified characters appear relatively rarely, and it is ordinary local folk that most populate the book and ‘speak’ in their native Ulster-Scots, a glossary for which is appended at the end.