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Derry or Londonderry , often called the Maiden City, is a city in Northern Ireland. The old walled city of Londonderry lies on the west bank of the River Foyle with the location of old Derry on the east bank, the present city now covers both banks (Cityside to the west and Waterside to the east) and the river is spanned by two bridges.
The city district also extends to rural areas to the southeast of the city.
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Encyclopedia
Derry or Londonderry , often called the Maiden City, is a city in Northern Ireland. The old walled city of Londonderry lies on the west bank of the River Foyle with the location of old Derry on the east bank, the present city now covers both banks (Cityside to the west and Waterside to the east) and the river is spanned by two bridges.
The city district also extends to rural areas to the southeast of the city. The population of the city proper was 83,652 in the 2001 Census. The Derry Urban Area had a population of 90,663, making it the second-largest city in Northern Ireland and Ulster, and the fourth largest on the island of Ireland. The wider Derry City Council area had a population of 107,300 as of June 2006. The district is administered by Derry City Council and contains both Londonderry Port and City of Derry Airport.
The Greater Derry area, that area within about 20 miles of the city, has a population of 237,000 and is comprised of Derry City Council, Limavady Borough Council, Strabane District council excluding the Castlederg area, and parts of North East Donegal in the Irish Republic, namely Inishowen, Letterkenny, Ballybofey/Stranorlar and Lifford.
Derry is the last remaining city in the British Isles to be surrounded by defensive walls, and has the most complete series of city walls in the islands. It is one of the few cities in Europe that never saw these fortifications breached.
Derry is very near the border with County Donegal in the Republic of Ireland. The city has had a very close relationship with what is now County Donegal for centuries. The person traditionally seen as the 'founder' of the original Derry is St. Columba (also known as Colm Cille or St. Columb), a holy man and royal prince from Tír Chonaill, the old name for almost all of modern County Donegal (of which the west bank of the Foyle was a part before c. 1600). Derry and the nearby town of Letterkenny form the major economic core of northwest Ireland.
Name
According to the city's Royal Charter the official name is Londonderry and, as stated in a recent High Court decision in January 2007, remains so. It usually appears as such on maps. The city is known by many as Derry, which is an anglicisation of the old Irish Daire, which in modern Irish is spelt Doire, and translates as ‘Oak-grove’. The name derives from the settlement's earliest references, Daire Calgaich (‘oakwood of Calgach’). The name was changed from Derry in 1613 during the Plantation of Ulster to reflect the establishment of the city by the London guilds.
The name "Derry" is preferred by nationalists and it is broadly used throughout Northern Ireland's Catholic community, as well as those of the Republic of Ireland, whereas many unionists prefer "Londonderry"; however in everyday conversation Derry is also used frequently by Protestants. Apart from this local government decision, official use within the UK the city is usually known as Londonderry. In the Republic of Ireland, the city and county are almost always referred to as Derry, on maps, in the media and in conversation. Whereas official road signs in the Republic use the name Derry, those in Northern Ireland bear Londonderry (sometimes abbreviated to L'Derry), although some of these have been defaced with the reference to London obscured, by those who disagree with the UK's official spelling. Usage varies among local organisations, with both names being used. Examples are City of Derry Airport, City of Derry Rugby Club, Derry City FC and the Protestant Apprentice Boys of Derry, as opposed to Londonderry Port and Londonderry Chamber Of Commerce. The council changed the name of the local government district covering the city to Derry on 7 May 1984, consequently renaming itself Derry City Council. This did not change the name of the city, although the city is coterminous with the district, and in law the city council is also the "Corporation of Londonderry" or, more formally, the "Mayor, Aldermen and Citizens of the City of Londonderry". The form "Londonderry" is used for the post town by the Royal Mail, however use of Derry will still ensure delivery.
The city is also nicknamed the Maiden City by virtue of the fact that its walls were never penetrated during the siege of Derry in the late 17th century. It is also nicknamed 'Stroke City' by local broadcaster, Gerry Anderson, due to the 'politically correct' use of the oblique notation Derry/Londonderry. A recent addition to the landscape has been the erection of several large stone columns on main roads into the city welcoming drivers, euphemistically, to "the walled city."
The name Derry is very much in popular use throughout Ireland for the naming of places, and indeed there are at least 6 towns bearing that name and at least a further 79 places, where like in the case of Londonderry, the word Derry forms a part of the place name, for example Derrymore, Derrybeg and Derrylea . This pattern is true of all parts of Ireland, from tip to toe.
History
The city has long been a focal point for important events in Irish history, including the 1688-1689 siege of Derry and Bloody Sunday on 30 January 1972.
Early history
Derry is one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in Ireland. The earliest historical references date to the 6th century when a monastery was founded there by St. Columba or Colmcille, a famous saint from what is now County Donegal, but for thousands of years before that people had been living in the vicinity.
Before leaving Ireland to spread Christianity elsewhere, Columba founded a monastery in the then Doire Calgach, on the east side of the Foyle. According to oral and documented history, the site was granted to Columba by a local king. The monastery then remained in the hands of the federation of Columban churches who regarded Colmcille as their spiritual mentor. The year 546 is often referred to as the date that the original settlement was founded. However it is accepted that this was an erroneous date assigned by medieval chroniclers. It is accepted that between the 6th century and the 11th century, Derry was known primarily as a monastic settlement.
The town became strategically more significant during the Tudor conquest of Ireland and came under frequent attack, until in 1608 it was destroyed by Cahir O'Doherty, Irish chieftain of Inishowen.
Plantation
Planters organised by London livery companies through The Honourable The Irish Society arrived in the 1600s as part of the plantation of Ulster, and built the city of Londonderry across the Foyle from the earlier town, with walls to defend it from Irish insurgents who did not welcome the occupation. The aim was to settle Ulster with a population supportive of the Crown.
This Londonderry was the first planned city in Ireland: it was begun in 1613, with the walls being completed 5 years later in 1618. The central diamond within a walled city with four gates was thought to be a good design for defence. The grid pattern chosen was subsequently much copied in the colonies of British North America. The charter initially defined the city as extending three Irish miles (about 6.1 km) from the centre.
The modern city preserves the 17th century layout of four main streets radiating from a central Diamond to four gateways — Bishop's Gate, Ferryquay Gate, Shipquay Gate and Butcher's Gate. The city's oldest surviving building was also constructed at this time: the 1633 Plantation Gothic cathedral of St Columb. In the porch of the cathedral is the inscription:
17th century upheavals
During the 1640s, the city suffered in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, which began with the Irish Rebellion of 1641, when the Gaelic Irish insurgents made a failed attack on the city. In 1649 the city and its garrison, which supported the republican Parliament in London, were besieged by Scottish Presbyterian forces loyal to King Charles I. The Parliamentarians besieged in Derry were relieved by a strange alliance of Roundhead troops under George Monck and the Irish Catholic general Owen Roe O'Neill. These temporary allies were soon fighting each other again however, after the landing in Ireland of the New Model Army in 1649. The war in Ulster was finally brought to an end when the Parliamentarians crushed the Irish Catholic Ulster army at the battle of Scarrifholis in nearby Donegal in 1650.
During the Glorious Revolution, only Londonderry and nearby Enniskillen had a Protestant garrison by November 1688. An army of around 1,200 men, mostly "Redshanks" (Highlanders), under Alexander Macdonnell, 3rd Earl of Antrim, was slowly organised (they set out on the week William of Orange landed in England). When they arrived on 7 December 1688 the gates were closed against them and the Siege of Derry began. In April 1689, King James came to the city and summoned it to surrender. The King was rebuffed and the siege lasted until the end of July with the arrival of a relief ship.
18th and 19th centuries
The city was rebuilt in the 18th century with many of its fine Georgian style houses still surviving. The city's first bridge across the River Foyle in 1790. During the 18th and 19th centuries the port became an important embarkation point for Irish emigrants setting out for North America. Some of these founded the colonies of Derry and Londonderry in the state of New Hampshire.
Also during the 19th century, it became a destination for migrants fleeing areas more severely affected by the Irish Potato Famine.
Partition
During the Irish War of Independence, the area was rocked by sectarian violence, partly prompted by the guerilla war raging between the Irish Republican Army and British forces, but also influenced by economic and social pressures. In July 1920, several thousand unionist ex-British Army servicemen mobilised to try to drive Catholics out of jobs they had taken during the First World War. Severe rioting ensued and the loyalists launched an assault on St Columb's Cathedral, which was resisted by armed IRA members. Many lives were lost and in addition many Catholics and Protestants were expelled from their homes during this communal unrest. After a week's violence, a truce was negotiated by local politicians on both unionist and republican sides.
In 1921, following the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the partition of Ireland, it unexpectedly became a border city, separated from much of its natural economic hinterland in County Donegal.
During the Second World War Londonderry played an important part in the Battle of the Atlantic. Ships from the Royal Navy, the Royal Canadian Navy, and other Allied navies were stationed in the city and the United States military established a base. The reason for such a high degree of military and naval activity was self-evident: Londonderry was the United Kingdom's westernmost port; indeed, the city was the westernmost Allied port in Europe: thus, Londonderry was a crucial jumping-off point, together with Glasgow and Liverpool, for the shipping convoys that ran between the British Isles/Western Europe and North America. The large numbers of military personnel in Londonderry substantially altered the character of the city, bringing in some outside colour to the local area, as well as some cosmopolitan and economic buoyancy during these years. At the conclusion of the Second World War, some 19 U-boats of the German Kriegsmarine came into the city's harbour at Lisahally to offer their surrender.
Troubles
Catholics were discriminated against under Unionist government in Northern Ireland, both politically and economically. In the late 1960s the city became the flashpoint of disputes about institutional gerrymandering. Political scientist John Whyte explains that:
All the accusations of gerrymandering, practically all the complaints about housing and regional policy, and a disproportionate amount of the charges about public and private employment come from this area. The area – which consisted of Counties Tyrone and Fermanagh, Londonderry County Borough, and portions of Counties Londonderry and Armagh - had less than a quarter of the total population of Northern Ireland yet generated not far short of three-quarters of the complaints of discrimination...The unionist government must bear its share of responsibility. It put through the original gerrymander which underpinned so many of the subsequent malpractices, and then, despite repeated protests, did nothing to stop those malpractices continuing The most serious charge against the Northern Ireland government is not that it was directly responsible for widespread discrimination, but that it allowed discrimination on such a scale over a substantial segment of Northern Ireland.
Civil rights demonstrations led by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association were declared illegal and then suppressed by the Royal Ulster Constabulary and Ulster Special Constabulary. The events that followed the August 1969 Apprentice Boys parade resulted in the Battle of the Bogside, when Catholic rioters fought the police, leading to widespread civil disorder in Northern Ireland and is often dated as the starting point of the Troubles.
On Sunday January 30, 1972, 13 unarmed civilians were shot dead by British paratroopers during a civil rights march in the Bogside area. Another 13 were wounded and one further man later died of his wounds. This event came to be known as Bloody Sunday.
Violence eased towards the end of the Troubles in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Irish journalist Ed Maloney claims in "The Secret History of the IRA" that republican leaders there negotiated a de facto ceasefire in the city as early as 1991. Whether this is true or not, the city did see less bloodshed by this time than Belfast or other localities.
The city was famously visited by a killer whale in November 1977 at the height of the troubles and was dubbed Dopey Dick by the thousands who came from miles around to see him.
Governance
The local district council is Derry City Council, which consists of five electoral areas: Cityside, Northland, Rural, Shantallow and Waterside. The council of 30 members is re-elected every four years, though the 2009 election is expected to be postponed until 2011, when a new council for Derry and Strabane is planned to replace existing councils. As of the 2005 election, 14 Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) members, ten Sinn Féin, five Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), and one Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) make up the council. The mayor and deputy mayor are elected annually by councillors, and SDLP councillor Gerard Diver's term as mayor began in June 2008.
The local authority boundaries correspond to the Foyle constituency of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and the Foyle constituency of the Northern Ireland Assembly. In European Parliament elections, it is part of the Northern Ireland constituency.
Coat of arms and motto
The devices on the city's arms are a skeleton and a three-towered castle on a black field, with the chief or top third of the shield depicting the arms of the City of London: a red cross and sword on white. In the centre of the cross is a gold harp.
The blazon of the arms is as follows:
Sable, a human skeleton Or seated upon a mossy stone proper and in dexter chief a castle triple towered argent on a chief also argent a cross gules thereon a harp or and in the first quarter a sword erect gules
According to documents in the College of Arms in London and the Office of the Chief Herald of Ireland in Dublin, the arms of the city were confirmed in 1613 by Daniel Molyneux, Ulster King of Arms. The College of Arms document states that the original arms of the City of Derry were ye picture of death (or a skeleton) on a moissy stone & in ye dexter point a castle and that upon grant of a charter of incorporation and the renaming of the city as Londonderry in that year the first mayor had requested the addition of a "chief of London".
Theories have been advanced as to the meaning of the "old" arms of Derry, before the addition of the chief bearing the arms of the City of London:
- A suggestion has been made that the castle is related to an early 14th century castle in nearby Greencastle belonging to the Anglo-Norman Earl of Ulster Richard de Burgh.
- The most popular theory about the skeleton is that it is that of a Norman De Burgh knight who was starved to death in the castle dungeons in 1332 on the orders of his cousin the above mentioned Earl of Ulster. Another explanation put forward was that it depicted Cahir O'Doherty (Sir Charles O'Dogherty), who was put to death after Derry was invested by the English army in 1608. During the days of Gerrymandering and discrimination against the Catholic population of Derry, Derry's Roman Catholics often used to claim in dark wit that the skeleton was a local waiting for help from the council bureaucracy.
In 1979 Derry City Council commissioned a report into the city's arms and insignia, as part of the design process for an heraldic badge. The published report found that there was no basis for any of the popular explanations for the skeleton and that it was "purely symbolic and does not refer to any identifiable person".
The 1613 records of the arms depicted a harp in the centre of the cross, but this was omitted from later depictions of the city arms, and in the Letters Patent confirming the arms to Londonderry Corporation in 1952. In 2002 Derry City Council applied to the College of Arms to have the harp restored to the city arms, and Garter and Norroy & Ulster Kings of Arms accepted the seventeenth century evidence, issuing letters patent to that effect in 2003.
The motto attached to the coat of arms reads in Latin, "Vita, Veritas, Victoria". This translates into English as, "Life, Truth, Victory".
Geography
Derry is characterised by its distinctively hilly topography. The River Foyle forms a deep valley as it flows through the city, making Derry a place of very steep streets and sudden, startling views. The original walled city of Londonderry lies on a hill on the west bank of the River Foyle. In the past, the river branched and enclosed this wooded hill as an island; over the centuries, however, the western branch of the river dried up and became a low-lying and boggy district that is now called the Bogside.
Today, modern Derry extends considerably north and west of the city walls and east of the river. The half of the city the west of the Foyle is known as the Cityside and the area east is called the Waterside. The Cityside and Waterside are connected by the Craigavon Bridge and Foyle Bridge. The district also extends into rural areas to the southeast of the city.
This much larger city, however, remains characterised by the often extremely steep hills that form much of its terrain on both sides of the river. A notable exception to this lies on the north-eastern edge of the city, on the shores of Lough Foyle, where large expanses of sea and mudflats were reclaimed in the middle of the nineteenth century. Today, these slob lands are protected from the sea by miles of sea walls and dikes. The area is an internationally important bird sanctuary.
Other important nature reserves lie at Ness Wood, east of Derry; and at Prehen Wood, within the city's south-eastern suburbs.
Climate
Climate Table | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year | | Average daily maximum temperature (°C) | 10 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 14 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 17 | 15 | 11 | 11 | 13.75 |
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| Average daily maximum temperature (°F) | 50 | 50 | 52 | 54 | 57 | 63 | 64 | 66 | 63 | 59 | 52 | 52 | 56.75 |
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| Average daily minimum temperature (°C) | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 8 | 10 | 10 | 9 | 6 | 4 | 1 | 4.8 |
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| Average daily minimum temperature (°F) | 32 | 32 | 36 | 37 | 41 | 46 | 50 | 50 | 48 | 43 | 39 | 34 | 40.7 |
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| Mean total rainfall (mm) | 110 | 80 | 90 | 60 | 60 | 70 | 70 | 90 | 100 | 120 | 120 | 100 | 1070 |
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| Mean total rainfall (in) | 4.3 | 3.1 | 3.5 | 2.4 | 2.4 | 2.8 | 2.8 | 3.5 | 3.9 | 4.7 | 4.7 | 3.9 | 42.1 |
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| Source: |
Demography
Derry Urban Area (DUA), including the city and the neighbouring settlements of Culmore, Newbuildings and Strathfoyle, is classified as a city by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) since its population exceeds 75,000. On census day (29 April 2001) there were 90,736 people living in Derry Urban Area. Of these, 27.0 per cent were aged under 16 years and 13.4 per cent were aged 60 and over; 48.3 per cent of the population were male and 51.7 per cent were female; 77.8 per cent were from a Roman Catholic background and 20.8 per cent were from a Protestant background; and 7.1 per cent of people aged 16-74 were unemployed.
The mid-2006 population estimate for the wider Derry City Council area was 107,300. Population growth in 2005/06 was driven by natural change, with net out-migration of approximately 100 people.
The city was one of the few in Ireland to experience an increase in population during the Irish Potato Famine as migrants came to it from other, more heavily affected areas. The great majority of these migrants were Catholic.
Protestant minority
Concerns have been raised by the Protestant community over the increasingly divided nature of the city. During the course of the Troubles, it is estimated that as many as 15,000 Protestants moved from the cityside. Fewer than 500 Protestants are now living on the west bank of the River Foyle, compared to 18,000 in 1969, with most on the Fountain Estate and it is feared that the city could become permanently divided.
However, concerted efforts have been made by local community, church and political leaders from both traditions to redress the problem. A conference to bring together key actors and promote tolerance was held in October 2006. Dr Ken Good, the Church of Ireland Bishop of Derry and Raphoe, said he was happy living on the cityside. "I feel part of it. It is my city and I want to encourage other Protestants to feel exactly the same", he said.
Support for Protestants in the district has been strong from the former SDLP city Mayor Helen Quigley. Cllr Quigley has made inclusion and tolerance key themes of her mayoralty. The Mayor Helen Quigley said it is time for "everyone to take a stand to stop the scourge of sectarian and other assaults in the city." This referred to assaults on citizens from both communities.
Economy
History
The economy of the district was based significantly on the textile industry until relatively recently. For many years women were often the sole wage earners working in the shirt factories while the men predominantly in comparison had high levels of unemployment. This led to significant male emigration. The history of shirt making in the city dates back as far as 1831 and is said to have been started by William Scott and his family who first exported shirts to Glasgow. Within 50 years, shirt making in the city was the most prolific in the UK with garments being exported all over the world. It was known so well that the industry received a mention in Das Kapital by Karl Marx, when discussing the factory system:
The industry reached its peak in the 1920s employing around 18,000 people. In modern times however the textile industry declined due to in most part cheaper Asian wages.
A long-term foreign employer in the area is Du Pont, which has been based at Maydown since 1958, its first European production facility. Originally Neoprene was manufactured at Maydown and subsequently followed by Hypalon. More recently Lycra and Kevlar production units were active. Thanks to a healthy worldwide demand for Kevlar which is made at the plant, the facility recently undertook a £40 million upgrade to expand its global Kevlar production. Du Pont has stated that contributing factors to its continued commitment to Maydown are "low labor costs, excellent communications, and tariff-free, easy access to the Britain and European continent."
Inward investment
In the last 15 years there has been a drive to increase inward investment in the city, more recently concentrating on digital industries. Currently the three largest private-sector employers are American firms. Economic successes have included call centres and a large investment by Seagate, which has operated a factory in the Springtown Industrial Estate since 1993. Seagate currently employs over 1,000 people in the Springtown premises, which produce more than half of the company's total requirement for hard drive read-write heads.
A recent but controversial new employer in the area is Raytheon, Raytheon Systems Limited, was established in 1999, in the Ulster Science & Technology Park, Buncrana Road. Although some of the local people welcomed the jobs boost while others in the area objected to the jobs being provided by a firm involved heavily in the arms trade. Following four years of protest by the Foyle Ethical Investment Campaign, in 2004 Derry City Council passed a motion declaring the district a "A 'No – Go' Area for the Arms Trade".
Significant multinational employers in the region include Firstsource of India, DuPont, INVISTA, Stream International, Seagate Technology, Perfecseal, NTL, Raytheon and Northbrook Technology of the United States, Arntz Belting and Invision Software of Germany, and Homeloan Management of the UK. Major local business employers include Desmonds, Northern Ireland's largest privately-owned company, manufacturing and sourcing garments, E&I Engineering, St. Brendan's Irish Cream Liqueur and McCambridge Duffy, one of the largest insolvency practices in the UK.
Even though the city provides cheap labour by standards in Western Europe, critics have noted that the grants offered by the Northern Ireland Industrial Development Board have helped land jobs for the area that only last as long as the funding lasts. This was reflected in questions to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Richard Needham, in 1990. It was noted that it cost £30,000 to create one job in an American firm in Northern Ireland.
Critics of investment decisions affecting the district often point to the decision to build a new university building in nearby (predominately Protestant) Coleraine rather than developing the University of Ulster Magee Campus. Another major government decision affecting the city was the decision to create the new town of Craigavon outside Belfast, which again was detrimental to the development of the city. Even in October 2005, there was perceived bias against the comparatively impoverished North West of the province, with a major civil service job contract going to Belfast. Mark Durkan, the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) leader and Member of Parliament (MP) for Foyle was quoted in the Belfast Telegraph as saying:
In July 2005, the Irish Minister for Finance, Brian Cowen, called for a joint task force to drive economic growth in the cross border region. This would have implications for Counties Londonderry, Tyrone, and Donegal across the border.
Shopping
The city is the north west's major shopping district, housing two large shopping centres along with numerous shop packed streets serving much of the greater county, as well as Tyrone and Donegal. Retail developments in Letterkenny have, however, lessened cross-border traffic from north County Donegal.
The city centre has two main shopping centres; the Foyleside Shopping Centre which has 45 stores and 1430 parking spaces, and the Richmond Centre, which has 39 retail units. The Quayside Shopping Centre also serves the city-side and there is also Lisnagelvin Shopping Centre in the Waterside. These centres, as well as local-run businesses, feature numerous national and international stores. A retail park was recently built called Crescent Link Retail Park located in the Waterside and has many international chain stores, including Homebase, Curries, Carpet Right, PC World, Argos Extra, Toys R Us, Halfords, JJB, Pets at Home, MFI, Tesco Express, M&S Simply Food and Land of Leather. In the short space that this site has been built, it has quickly grown to the second largest retail park in Northern Ireland (second only to Sprucefield in Lisburn).
It is also home to the world's oldest independent department store; Austins. Established in 1830, Austins predates Jenners of Edinburgh by 5 years, Harrods of London by 15 years and Macy's of New York by 25 years. The store's five-story Edwardian building is located in the city centre's Diamond.
Landmarks
There is a distinct architectural quality compared with other Irish cities. This quality can be primarily ascribed to the formal planning of the historic walled city of Londonderry at the core of the modern city. This is centred on the Diamond with a collection of late Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian buildings maintaining the gridlines of the main thoroughfares (Shipquay Street, Ferryquay Street, Butcher Street and Bishop Street) to the City Gates. St Columb's Cathedral does not follow the grid pattern reinforcing its civic status. This Church of Ireland Cathedral was the first post-Reformation Cathedral built for an Anglican church. The construction of the Roman Catholic St. Eugene's Cathedral in the Bogside in the nineteenth-century was another major architectural addition to the city. The more recent infill buildings within the walls are of varying quality and in many cases these were low quality hurriedly constructed replacements for 1970s bomb damaged buildings. The Townscape Heritage Initiative has funded restoration works to key listed buildings and other older structures.
In the three centuries since their construction, the city walls have been adapted to meet the needs of a changing city. The best example of this adaptation is the insertion of three additional gates — Castle Gate, New Gate and Magazine Gate — into the walls in the course of the nineteenth century. Today, the fortifications form a continuous promenade around the city centre, complete with cannon, avenues of mature trees and views across Derry. Historic buildings within the city walls include St Augustine's Church, which sits on the city walls close to the site of the original monastic settlement; the copper-domed Austin's department store, which claims to the oldest such store in the world; and the imposing Greek Revival Courthouse on Bishop Street. The red-brick late-Victorian Guildhall, also crowned by a copper dome, stands just beyond Shipquay Gate and close to the river front.
There are many museums and sites of interest in and around the city, including the Foyle Valley Railway Centre, the Amelia Earhart Centre And Wildlife Sanctuary, the Apprentice Boys Memorial Hall, Ballyoan Cemetery, The Bogside, numerous murals by the Bogside Artists, Derry Craft Village, Free Derry Corner, O'Doherty Tower (now home to part of the Tower Museum), the Guildhall, the Harbour Museum, the Museum of Free Derry, Chapter House Museum, the Workhouse Museum, the Nerve Centre, St. Columb's Park and Leisure Centre, St Eugene's Cathedral, Creggan Country Park, The Millennium Forum and the Foyle and Craigavon bridges.
Future projects include the Walled City Signature Project, which intends to ensure that the city's walls become a world class tourist experience.
The city has seen a large boost to its economy in the form of tourism over the last few years. Cheap flights offered by budget airlines have enticed many people to visit the city. Tourism mainly focuses around the pubs, mainly those of Waterloo Street. Other attractions include museums, a vibrant shopping centre and trips to the Giant's Causeway, which is approximately away.
Transport
The transport network is built out of a complex array of old and modern roads and railways throughout the city and county. The city's road network also makes use of two bridges to cross the River Foyle, the Craigavon Bridge and the Foyle Bridge, the longest bridge in Ireland. Derry also serves as a major transport hub for travel throughout nearby County Donegal.
In spite of it being the second city of Northern Ireland (and it being the second-largest city in all of Ulster), road and rail links to other cities are below par for its standing. Many business leaders claim that government investment in the city and infrastructure has been badly lacking. Some have stated that this is due to its outlying border location whilst others have cited a sectarian bias against the region west of the River Bann due to its high proportion of Catholics.There is no direct motorway link with Dublin or Belfast. The rail link to Belfast has been downgraded over the years so that presently it is not a viable alternative to the roads for industry to rely on. There are currently plans for £1 billion worth of transport infrastructure investment in and around the district.
Buses
Most public transport in Northern Ireland is operated by the subsidiaries of Translink. Originally the city's internal bus network was run by Ulsterbus, which still provides the city's connections with other towns in Northern Ireland. The city's buses are now run by Ulsterbus Foyle, just as Translink Metro now provides the bus service in Belfast. The Ulsterbus Foyle network offers 13 routes across the city into the suburban areas, excluding an Easibus link which connects to the Waterside and Drumahoe, and a free Rail Link Bus runs from the Waterside Railway Station to the city centre. All buses leave from the Foyle Street Bus Station in the city centre.
Long distance buses depart from Foyle Street Bus Station to destinations throughout Ireland. Buses are operated by both Ulsterbus and Bus Éireann on cross-border routes and also by Lough Swilly buses to Co. Donegal. There is a half-hourly service to Belfast every day, called the Maiden City Flyer, which is the Goldline Express flagship route. There are hourly services to Strabane, Omagh, Coleraine, Letterkenny and Buncrana, and eleven services a day to bring people to Dublin. There is a daily service to Sligo, Galway, Shannon Airport and Limerick.
Railways
Northern Ireland Railways (N.I.R.) has a single route from Londonderry railway station (also known as Waterside Station) on the Waterside to Belfast via Bellarena, Castlerock, Coleraine, Ballymoney, Cullybackey, Ballymena, Antrim, Mossley West and Whiteabbey. The service, which had been allowed to deteriorate in the 1990s, has since been boosted by increased investment.
Currently, a plan has been put in place by the Department for Regional Development, for relaying of the track between Derry and Coleraine by 2013, which will include a passing loop, and the introduction of two new train sets. The £86 million plan will reduce the journey time to Belfast by 30 minutes and allow commuter trains to arrive before 9 a.m. for the first time. However, many still do not use the train, due to the fact that at over two hours it is slower centre-to-centre than the 100-minute Ulsterbus Goldline Express service.
At one time, the city was served by four different systems which stretched throughout Northern Ireland and County Donegal and deep into southern Ireland. Indeed, for a long time, Derry served as the main railway hub for County Donegal. At the turn of the last century, Clones was one of the major junctions from Derry, Omagh, and Belfast to north Leinster, in particular, the major market towns of Athlone, Cavan, and Mullingar. This back-bone rail infrastructure was administered by Midland Great Western Railway which also linked to other major centres namely, Sligo, Tullamore, via Clara, other destinations such as Dublin, Limerick, and other market centres of the south coast.
Road network
The road network has historically seen under-investment and has lacked good road connections to both Belfast and Dublin for many years. Long overdue, the largest road investment in the north west's history is now taking place in the district with the construction of new dual-carriageways and roads to Dungiven and helping to reduce the time it takes to get to Belfast. This development is bringing a direct dual-carriageway linking between Northern Ireland's two largest cities a step closer. The project is costing £250 million and is expected to be completed in 2015. In October 2006, the Irish Government announced that it was to invest €1 billion in Northern Ireland; and one of the planned projects was the complete upgrade of the A5 Derry-Omagh-Aughnacloy(-Dublin) road, around 90 km (56 mi) long, to motorway standard.
It is yet unknown will these two separate projects interconnect at any point, although there has been calls for some form of connection between the two routes.
In June 2008, Conor Murphy, Minister for Regional Development, announced that a study looking into the feasibility of connecting the A5 and A6 will occur. Should it proceed, the scheme would most likely run from Drumahoe to South of Prehen along the South East of the City.
Air
City of Derry Airport, the council-owned commercial airport near Eglinton, has been growing in recent years with new investment in a new runway and £10 million towards redeveloping the site. It is hoped that the new investment will add to the airport's limited array of domestic and international flights. At the end of 2008 work will begin on turning the A2 from Maydown to Eglinton and the airport into a dual carriageway, with completion estimated by 2010. The airport receives significant public subsidies. The facility is the main regional airport for County Donegal, West Tyrone and the west of County Londonderry, as well as Derry City itself.
There are scheduled flights to Dublin, London Stansted, Liverpool, Glasgow Prestwick Airport, Birmingham International Airport, Luton, and Alicante all year round and charter flights to Majorca, Barcelona and the Canary Islands during the summer.
Sea
Londonderry Port at Lisahally is the United Kingdom's most westerly port and has capacity for 30,000-ton vessels. Recently the Londonderry Port and Harbour Commission has announced record turnover, record profits and record tonnage figures for the year ended March 2008. The excellent figures are as a result of a significant capital expenditure programme for the period 2000 to 2007 of Circa £22 Million. Tonnage handled by Londonderry Port and Harbour Commissioners (LPHC) increased by almost 65 per cent between 2000 and 2007, according to the latest annual results. The port played a vital part for the Allies in World War II during the war's longest running campaign, the Battle of the Atlantic, and saw the surrender of the German U-Boat fleet at Lisahally on 8 May 1945.
Education
Derry is home to the Magee Campus of the University of Ulster, which was formerly Magee College. Given the affordability of housing in the city, the student population has boomed in recent years bringing a revival in the fortunes of the Magee Campus. The North West Regional College is also based in the city.
Secondary schools include St. Columb's College, Oakgrove Integrated College, St Cecilia's College, St. Joseph's Boys' School, Lisneal College, Foyle and Londonderry College, Thornhill College, Lumen Christi College St. Brigid's College and St. Peter's High School. There are also numerous primary schools.
Sports
The city is home to sports clubs and teams. Both association football and Gaelic football are popular in the area. In association football, the city's main team (in terms of supporters) is Derry City who play in the national league of the Republic of Ireland. Also playing in the city are Institute and Oxford United Stars, of the Irish League. In Gaelic football Derry GAA are the county team and play in the Gaelic Athletic Association's National Football League, Ulster Senior Football Championship and All-Ireland Senior Football Championship. They also field hurling teams in the equivalent tournaments. There are many Gaelic games clubs in and around the city, for example Na Magha CLG, Steelstown GAC, Doire Colmcille CLG, Seán Dolans GAC Na Piarsaigh CLG Doire Trasna and Slaughtmanus GAC.
In addition to the Derry City, Institute and Oxford United Stars, who all play in national leagues, other clubs are based in the city. The local football league is the Derry and District League and teams from the city and surrounding areas participate, including Lincoln Courts, Don Boscos and Trojans, also North West teams like BBOB (Boys Brigade Old Boys). The Foyle Cup youth soccer tournament is held annually in the city. It has attracted many notable teams in the past, including Werder Bremen, IFK Göteborg and Ferencváros.
There are many boxing clubs, the most well-known being The Ring Boxing Club, which is associated with Charlie Nash and John Duddy, amongst others. Rugby Union is also quite popular in the city, with the City of Derry Rugby Club situated not far from the city centre. YMCA RFC is another Rugby club and is based in Drumahoe which is just outside the city. The city's only basketball club is North Star Basketball Club which has teams in the Basketball Northern Ireland senior and junior Leagues.
Culture
In recent years the city, and surrounding countryside, has become well-known for its artistic legacy producing such talents as the Nobel Prizewinning poet Seamus Heaney, the poet Seamus Deane, the playwright Brian Friel, the writer and music critic Nik Cohn, the artist Willie Doherty, the socio-political commentator and activist Eamonn McCann as well as bands such as The Undertones. The large political gable-wall murals of Bogside Artists, Free Derry Corner, the Foyle Film Festival, the Derry Walls, St Eugene's and St Columb's Cathedrals and the annual Halloween street carnival are popular tourist attractions.
Media
The local papers the Derry Journal (known as the Londonderry Journal until 1880) and the Londonderry Sentinel reflect the divided history of the city: the Journal was founded in 1772 and is Ireland's second oldest newspaper; the Sentinel newspaper was formed in 1829 when new owners of the Journal embraced Catholic Emancipation, and the editor left the paper to set up the Sentinel. There are numerous radio stations receivable: the largest stations based in the city are BBC Radio Foyle and the commercial station Q102.9. There is a locally based television station, C9TV, which is one of only two local or 'restricted' television services in Northern Ireland.
Night-life
The city's night-life is mainly centred on the weekend, with several bars and clubs providing "student nights" during the weekdays. Waterloo Street and the Strand Road are central to the City's nightlife. Waterloo Street is a steep street lined with various pubs, both Irish traditional and modern. Live rock and traditional music can frequently be heard emanating from the pub-doors and windows whilst walking up or down the street at night. On the Strand, Derry also has a Wetherspoons outlet, which is popular with punters as a pre-club drinking destination, as well as Lloyds No. 1 Bar (also owned by Wetherspoons). The city is renowned for producing exceptionally talented musicians and many bands perform in venues around the city, for example the Smalltown America duo, Fighting with Wire and Jetplane Landing. Triggerman and Swanee River have resident slots at Mason's Bar, while numerous other young local and indeed international bands perform at the Nerve Centre.
Events
- The world-famous "Banks of the Foyle Hallowe’en Carnival" (known in Irish as Féile na Samhna) in Derry also prove a huge tourism boost for the city, the carnival is promoted as being the first and longest running Halloween carnival in the whole of Ireland,It is the largest street party in Ireland with more than 40,000 ghoulish revellers taking to the streets annually.
- In March, the city hosts the Big Tickle Comedy Festival, which in 2006 featured Dara Ó Briain and Colin Murphy. In April the city plays host to City of Derry Jazz and Big Band Festival and in November the Foyle Film Festival, the biggest film festival in Northern Ireland.
- Every summer the city hosts Tomo-Dachi, Ireland's largest Anime convention, which in July 2006 was held at Magee College, University of Ulster. Hundreds of fans from across the UK and Ireland descended upon the city for the .
- The siege of Derry is commemorated annually by the fraternal organisation the Apprentice Boys of Derry in the week long Maiden City Festival.
- The Instinct Festival is an annual youth festival celebrating the Arts. It is held around Easter and has proven a success in recent years.
- Radio 1's Big Weekend was held in Derry in Prehen Playing Fields in 2004.
- Celtronic is a major annual electronic dance festival held at venues all around the city. The 2007 Festival featured the DJ, Erol Alkan.
- The Millennium Forum is the main theatre in the city, it holds numerous shows weekly.
- On 9 December 2007 Derry entered the Guinness Book of Records when 13000 Santas gathered to break the world record beating previous records held by Liverpool and Las Vegas.
Notable people
Notable people who were born or have lived in Derry include the Restoration dramatist George Farquhar; authors Joyce Cary, Seamus Deane and Nell McCafferty; poet and Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney; Social Democratic and Labour Party founder and Nobel Peace Prize winner John Hume; Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland Martin McGuinness; Aston Villa manager Martin O'Neill; Manchester United player Darron Gibson; actress Amanda Burton; Girls Aloud member Nadine Coyle; musician Feargal Sharkey; and Eurovision Song Contest winner and former politician Dana. The band The Undertones, were also all from Derry.
See also
External links
* Speaker: Rita McClaughlin (b.1940/03/02; female, embroiderer) The British Library Board
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