Derry – The Town I Loved So Well

Derry (officially named Londonderry by the British) is a walled city, one of the few with a complete wall around the central city.  It is known as the Maiden City, since its walls have never been breached. The wall is twelve to thirty-five feet thick in some places, with a promenade on top, so that it is possible to walk or parade around the city on the wall. This was part of the problem, as an annual march along the wall in 1969 by the all-protestant Apprentice Boys of Derry devolved into several days of warfare in Derry, known as the Battle of the Bogside. Derry is also a flashpoint city for the Troubles from the late 60’s to the late 90’s, along with other cities, and bombings across the UK, famous for conflicts between Republicans (mostly Catholic, but not exclusively) and Unionists (mostly Protestant, but not exclusively) quarreling over discrimination, privilege, inequality, and arrogance.

The coach drops us off at the Derry Tourist Center beside the river, and access to the central city is up by escalators through a multi-storey shopping mall, 

  
depositing us on a street below the wall. Garvin, our local tour guide, (in the yellow vest) leads us up onto the wall, and begins a heart-felt, warts-and-all presentation of the city’s history, with emphasis on the Siege of Derry and the heroism of the Thirteen Apprentices in 1688, which is part of the roots of the Troubles in Ireland and Derry in the last third of the Twentieth century. 

  

  
 Garvin is a proud, life-long citizen of Derry, and gives us a dramatic tour along the wall, pointing out sites of events, and describing personalities, events, intentions, discrimination, mistakes, motivations, politics, and pig-headedness that figure in the 300+ years of unionist, republican, nationalist, and international maneuvering. 

In the 1980’s, the city council of Derry petitioned the Privy Council in London to change the “official” name back to Derry or Doire in Gaelic, which is how most residents, whether unionist or nationalist, refer to the city, but has had no answer yet. These things take time.

Phil Coulter composed the song The Town I Loved So Well about the city of Derry, which has become one of the great standards of contemporary Irish music. As he writes in the last verse, the city “will not forget, but their hearts are set on tomorrow and peace once again.”

This is reflected in Garvin’s urging for us to tell others about the efforts toward peace and reconciliation, still ongoing, and in the establishment of a Peace Garden below the walls

   
 

And the recent construction of the Peace Bridge across the Foyle River