Derry ~ aka Londonderry, The Walled City, City of Two Churches, or My Favorite....Legenderry

As many of you may know, Ireland is made up of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom.  A simple enough statement, at first read, but in reality, oh-so-complicated.  We had spent a little bit of time reading about the history of Ireland before our trip, but mostly we were learning on-the-road.  Our lessons were about to get a lot more intense.  We left Donegal and headed for Londonderry/Derry in Northern Ireland.  It was an unassuming change of country...no need for passports, no government building, not even a sign posting the change!  The only glitch was figuring out how to change countries on our GPS.  We arrived in Derry and met up with our tour guide, Garvin, and our lessons began.

Garvin was an exceptional tour guide.  He had it all....he was funny, energetic, entertaining and put special effort into keeping the boys interested.  Even more importantly, he was passionate about Derry and its history, both distant and recent.  

He began with the distant past.  Derry, an important seaport on the tidal River Foyle, is a walled city.  The walls were built by the English way back in the days of Queen Elizabeth in the early 1600's.  Those same walls were instrumental in 1689, during a 105 day siege on Derry by Catholic James II, who was trying to regain the English throne from the Protestant William III.  This conflict between Catholic and Protestant is a very old one.

You can walk on the city wall, which gives you wonderful views of the city.  This picture, taken from the city wall, is of another wall....called the "peace wall", built to separate the lives of the Catholics and Protestants.  Today, the blur between politics and religion in Ireland sways more toward being politics-focused vs. religion-focused, but the two are so intertwined that they cannot be separated.  We were amazed that this segregating wall still stands today and that the areas on either side of it were clearly of one side or the other.

There is an area just outside the city walls, called Bogside, that draws you into more recent raw history and a time referred to as "The Troubles".  On the heels of the civil rights movement in America, issues of unemployment, inequality, and housing shortages were reaching a head.  This wall was painted in 1969 by activists and has, over the years, become a place where people come to voice their grievances or political views.  This area has been the site of much violence between activists and particularly British Forces over the years.   You can see the new political graffiti on the wall ~ we were there the day after Margaret Thatcher died.  They are not fans of Margaret Thatcher in Derry, but that is another story.

The Bogside tells its history through murals.  I found this one to be the most striking ~  it is entitled "Death of Innocence".  The girl depicted, Annette McGavigan, was caught in the cross-fire between the IRA and British soldiers in 1971.  It originally looked a little different, but has been re-painted to reflect recent peace seeking efforts.

These other murals were painted later by The Bogside Artists to tell the tales of the times, particularly the story of an infamous day referred to as Bloody Sunday ~ January 30th, 1972.  You may recall the U2 song "Sunday Bloody Sunday" about that day ~ I always liked that song, but had NO clue what it meant. On Bloody Sunday, the British army opened fire on a civil rights march.  Thirteen people died and 14 were injured.  As Garvin told us this story, he was very emotional ~ he had lost a good family friend that day.  Recent years have brought efforts toward peace (the Good Friday Agreement of 1994, aided by Bill Clinton who is given hero-status here, and the Saville Report, 2010 ~ look them up if you want to know more!), and though the emotions of this town are raw, there is a feel of healing, as demonstrated by this more recent mural of a dove below (not a great photo ~ it is kind of hard to see because of the trees).

When Jeff proofread this post for me, he pointed out the light pole in the foreground which I hadn't noticed because I was focused on the mural.  It is painted in the colors of the Irish flag.  This is actually symbolic of the Catholic side/those who want Northern Ireland to be part of Ireland.  So while there ARE efforts toward peace, there are still such blatant alignment with "a side".  

This is a memorial for the people who died on Bloody Sunday.  I do want to add that despite the intensity of the history, I thought Derry was charming.  Garvin was so sweet, with a heart that prays continually for peace for his people and I plan to join him in that prayer of Peace for the people of Derry and all of Northern Ireland.