In 1904 the Midland took delivery of a pair of new passenger ferries from Clydeside shipyards in Glasgow and Greenock to work between Heysham Port and Belfast Harbour.

Donegal was one of numerous ferries, many of them requisitioned from railway companies, that were converted into ambulance ships to carry wounded personnel from France back to Great Britain.

Then on 17 April 1917 both Donegal and a larger ship, HMHS Lanfranc, were sunk by U-boats when carrying British wounded across the English Channel.

[3][4] She was about 19 nautical miles (35 km) south of the Dean light vessel when the German Type UC II submarine SM UC-21 torpedoed her.

[4] A Royal Naval Reserve Lieutenant, H Holehouse, jumped from his ship into the sea to recover one of Donegal's wounded soldiers from the water.

[7] Both Jewell[6] and Priest[7] then served on Titanic's White Star Line sister ship HMHS Britannic, and survived when she was sunk in November 1916.