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| The clock tower of the Guild Hall can be seen from the walls of old Derry at Magazine Gate. Children play on the cannons that once defended the transplanted Protestants within the walls from the Irish. Modern Derry has approximately 90,000 people. |
| We traveled from Westport through County Donegal to Derry. On the way we stopped in Drumcliff where W. B. Yeats is buried in a church yard. Yeats died in 1939 in France, but his body was laid to rest in his home county in 1948. The little church is on the site of an old monastic site dating back to the days of St. Columba. |
| Stephen took us on a walking tour around the walls of the old city originally created to be a stronghold for English Protestant settlers that moved into Derry about 1613-1618. They called the city Londonderry. The walls are 26 feet high in some places and about as thick. The Irish part of Derry surrounds the walled center with Bogside to the west and the River Foyle on the east. Derry is Stephen's home. |
| The Diamond or main square is located in the center of the walled city where a war memorial was errected in 1927. This picture of the war memorial was taken from the top of the wall at Butcher's Gate. |
| The neo-gothic guild hall stands outside the walls between the walled city and the River Foyle. |
| Many Irish Catholics came to Derry during the potato famine of 1845 to gain passage to the U. S. However some were so weak they could not survive the five week voyage. So they stayed in Derry. The sculpture in the center of Derry honors those who suffered from the famine. |
| Peadar O'Donnell's is an Irish Catholic pub outside of the walls in the Bogside area. Jim and Gary stopped in for a beer and found that the locals are not accustomed to seeing many tourists. It was a fascinating place with Catholic and Protestant flags and drums for decoration. |
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| Derry was the scene of much violence during the worst times of the troubles. Derry is a part of the United Kingdom, not the Republic of Ireland. So British troops were sent to stop the violence, but they became a part of the problem. We visited at a historic time as the last British soldiers had left Derry only a few days before we arrived. Derry has been peaceful and there is hope for the future. |
| The Bogside area in Derry is an area where many Irish Catholics live and it was the scene of some of the worst violence. In 1972 British soldiers killed 14 Irish protestors in this area, an event that came to be known as Bloody Sunday and drew world-wide attention to the conflict in Northern Ireland. Today the area is quiet and artists have painted murals on the buildings commerating some of the events of the 1960's and 1970's. The Bloody Sunday Monument lists the names of those killed and is located very close to the exact spot they lost their lives. Another monument at Free Derry Corner commerates hunger strikers who died in prision. |