Derry~Londonderry’s history stretches from a pagan warrior’s camp on a Foyle island to a modern city still shaped by centuries of conflict and change.
Origins
Derry takes its name from the Irish Doire Calgach - “the Oak Grove of Calgach,” a pagan warrior said to have camped on the island in pre-Christian times. St Columba (Colmcille) founded a monastery here in 546 AD, on the site of today’s Long Tower Church, and the settlement later became known as Doire Colmcille in his honour - a name that survived, gradually anglicised, until the 17th century.
Key Historical Milestones
- 1164 - Flahertach O’Brolchain, Derry’s first bishop, builds the city’s first cathedral, the Teampall Mór.
- 1566 - English forces under Colonel Randolph establish the first defensive garrison near the site of the present walls; Randolph is killed defeating O’Neill’s forces nearby, and the garrison is evacuated by 1568 amid disease and an explosion.
- 1567 - The Teampall Mór is destroyed by fire.
- 1600 - Sir Henry Docwra occupies Derry for Queen Elizabeth I, arriving at Culmore with a large force, establishing the English foothold that would shape the city’s future.
- 1603 - The Nine Years’ War ends with O’Neill’s submission; King James issues a charter for the new “cittie of derrie,” with Docwra as governor.
- 1606 - Docwra sells his interests to George Paulet, whose poor relations with local chieftain Cahir O’Doherty prove disastrous.
- 1608 - O’Doherty rebels, captures Derry, and destroys its buildings - a pivotal event that helps confirm plans to proceed with the Plantation of Ulster.
- 1613 - Derry’s charter is renewed, renaming it Londonderry, under the stewardship of the London-based Honourable The Irish Society; County Londonderry is formed the same year.
- 1613-1619 - Derry’s city walls are built (sources vary slightly on the exact completion year within this window), making it the last walled city, and first planned town, built in Ireland.
- 1628-33 - St Columb’s Cathedral, the first cathedral built anywhere for the Anglican church after the Reformation, is completed.
- 1641 and 1688-89 - Derry endures its first and third sieges within fifty years; the 105-day Great Siege of 1688-89 sees the city successfully hold out against Jacobite forces under King James II.
- 1786 - Bishop Hervey rebuilds St Columb’s Cathedral.
- 1830s-1850s - Shipbuilding becomes established in Derry; the 1845-49 Famine drives major emigration through the port; the Derry-Belfast railway opens in 1855.
- 1942-45 - A US Naval Base operates in Derry as a key Battle of the Atlantic supply depot; German U-boats surrender at nearby Lisahally in 1945.
- 1968 - A civil rights march is met with violence in Duke Street on 5 October, drawing international attention to Northern Ireland’s civil rights movement.
- 1969 - The “Battle of the Bogside” (12-14 August) leads to British troops being deployed on Northern Ireland’s streets for the first time.
- 1972 - On Bloody Sunday, British paratroopers shoot dead thirteen unarmed civilians, with a fourteenth victim dying of his wounds shortly after.
- 2013 - Derry becomes the UK’s first City of Culture.
Living With the Past
The city walls remain a powerful, contested symbol - historically a site of annual commemoration for the Protestant community (marking the 1688-89 siege) and, for many in the Catholic community, a reminder of centuries of disadvantage that followed. Groups including the Apprentice Boys of Derry and representatives from the Bogside have worked, with varying success, toward mutual understanding of this divisive shared history.
