This book celebrates the bi-centenary of the building of the Comet - the world's first sea-going steamship - and examines the technological, business and social history of shipping services on Scotland's Western seaboard in the period since the Comet's first voyage in 1812. Bruce Peter collaborated with Donald Meek who, until his retirement, was Professor of Celtic Studies at The University of Edinburgh and is a very significant Gaelic scholar. Most existing accounts of the effects of modern ships in the Hebrides have been written exclusively from the perspectives of those based in Glasgow but, in our research, we wanted also to include evidence of how steamships were received by Gaels.

The book uses a partly chronological, partly thematic approach, examining first the advent of the early steamships and the political, economic and social upheavals which paralleled their creation in and around Glasgow during the early-nineteenth century. The narrative then addresses the rapid development of route networks, the entrepreneurs who operated these vessels and their effects in bringing hitherto remote places much closer to the city. Migration from the islands and the movement of tourists in the opposite direction are addressed, as is shipboard life. The text examines the consequences of the building of railways to the coast and the development of railway owned steamer fleets, the two world wars, nationalisation in the latter-1940s and, finally the era of the car ferry and the current operations of Caledonian MacBrayne.