Derry

The earliest records of the place date from the 6th century, when Colmcille, or St Columba, founded a monastery on the west bank of the Foyle at a place then called Doire Calgach; 546 is often given as the founding date, and the name Doire means "oak grove". The north-west stayed under Gaelic rule until the Nine Years' War, and in 1608 the town was burned in a rebellion. Under the Plantation of Ulster the English Crown handed the area to The Honourable The Irish Society, backed by the London livery companies, which built the first planned city in Ireland from 1613, enclosed it with walls by 1619 and renamed it Londonderry.

The walls withstood three sieges in the 17th century. In December 1688 apprentice boys shut the gates against King James's army, and the Siege of Derry lasted 105 days until relief ships broke through up the Foyle at the end of July 1689; the city has been called the Maiden City ever since. In the 19th century shirt-making, begun in 1831, became within 50 years the most prolific in the UK, with women often the main wage earners while unemployment among men was high.

Partition in 1921 put a border at the city's western edge. Catholics were discriminated against under unionist rule, and the city became the centre of the civil rights movement. The Battle of the Bogside in August 1969 is often dated as the start of the Troubles, and on 30 January 1972, Bloody Sunday, British paratroopers shot dead 13 unarmed civilians on a civil rights march. After the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 the Peace Bridge opened in 2011, and in 2013 the city was the first UK City of Culture.

Derry carries two names and two traditions. Nationalists say Derry, the name used by the council since 1984; unionists often prefer Londonderry, the official name under the royal charter of 1662; and the compromise "Derry/Londonderry" earned the city the nickname Stroke City from the broadcaster Gerry Anderson. Road signs in Northern Ireland read Londonderry, and on some of them "London" has been obscured. The Apprentice Boys of Derry commemorate the siege each August, while the Bogside's murals and the Museum of Free Derry tell the nationalist story of the civil rights years, Free Derry and Bloody Sunday.

The city has turned its calendar into a draw. Its Halloween carnival, held on the last weekend of October, draws more than 30,000 revellers and is promoted as the first and longest-running in Ireland, and there are jazz, maritime and film festivals through the year. The Millennium Forum and the Playhouse stage theatre and music, and traditional sessions fill the bars of Waterloo Street.

Both association football and Gaelic football are popular. Derry City, known as the Candystripes, play in the League of Ireland Premier Division, the top league of the Republic of Ireland, as its only club from Northern Ireland. Local humour is quick and self-mocking: residents once joked that the skeleton on the city's coat of arms was a Catholic waiting for a job and a council house.

The 2021 census counted about 85,000 people in the city, making it Northern Ireland's second-largest, and about 105,000 lived in the urban area in 2011. Around 78 per cent of residents in 2021 came from a Catholic background and about 17 per cent from a Protestant or other Christian one. The city divides along the river: about 17,000 Protestants lived on the west bank, the Cityside, in 1971, but the number fell rapidly during the 1970s, and the 2011 census recorded about 3,200 there against about 55,000 Catholics.

The old shirt factories have gone. Call centres and inward investment have filled part of the gap; Seagate has run a factory in the Springtown Industrial Estate since 1993 and employed about 1,400 people in 2019. The Magee campus of Ulster University is in the city, and critics have long argued that the north-west has been short-changed on investment, from the university to roads and railways.

Shopping centres such as Foyleside and Quayside serve the Cityside, and the Crescent Link retail park in the Waterside is the second largest in Northern Ireland. Life runs across the border as a matter of course, with hourly buses to Letterkenny and Buncrana in Donegal and cross-border shopping whenever exchange rates or tax differences favour it.

Derry eats as the rest of Northern Ireland does. The Ulster fry, which topped a poll of Ulster's favourite dish, is a variant of the full breakfast that traditionally includes soda farls — farls made from soda bread — and potato bread alongside bacon, sausages and eggs. Champ is an Irish dish of mashed potatoes with scallions, butter and milk.

Chip shops are part of everyday life. Alongside fish and chips they sell the pastie, a round of minced pork, onion and potato in batter, deep-fried; with chips it is a pastie supper, because "supper" in a Northern Irish chip shop means something served with chips. In a white roll it becomes a pastie bap. The filling was traditionally coloured pink with cochineal, though many shops have stopped.

The walled city has cafés and restaurants on its steep streets, Thai among them, and the Craft Village inside the walls holds more. On the first Saturday of each month the Walled City Market is held in Guildhall Square. In the evening the bars of Waterloo Street, just outside the walls, are where food gives way to drink and music.