County in Northern Ireland
County Londonderry
A county with two names, one of Ireland's best-preserved walled cities, and a hill where a Hollywood-sized sea of sand meets Atlantic surf.
Key information
- County
- County Londonderry
- Nation
- Northern Ireland
- Known for
- Walled city, Mussenden Temple, Binevenagh cliffs, Sperrins, Bushmills-adjacent north coast
- What locals are called
- Derry people or Derry folk; Derry fans are 'Derry City' supporters
- Famous people
- Seamus Heaney, Phil Coulter, Roma Downey, Seamus Deane
- Football clubs
- Derry City, Institute, Coleraine
About County Londonderry
A temple on the edge of a cliff
Start with the most photographed building in the county: Mussenden Temple, a small circular library that looks as though it is about to drop into the Atlantic. It was built in the 1780s by Frederick Hervey, the Earl Bishop of Derry, a wealthy, eccentric clergyman who travelled Europe collecting art and ideas. He named it after his cousin Frideswide Mussenden. The temple sits at Downhill, above a huge sweep of beach, and the setting is so dramatic that it has become one of the best-known images of the north coast. Hervey also left his mark on the landscape in other ways, including the road-building and estate improvements that shaped this stretch of coast. He was a man who liked a view and had the money to improve on it.
One county, two names
Ask for directions and you may get a lesson in politics. The county is officially County Londonderry, but many people simply call it County Derry. The name goes back to the early 1600s, when London livery companies were handed lands here as part of the Plantation of Ulster, and the old Irish name Doire, meaning oak grove, gained its London prefix. The Irish name still carries weight, and the choice of word can say a lot about who is speaking. Road signs, football crowds and sports clubs all have their own habits. Most visitors find it easiest to follow whichever the person in front of them uses.
The city you can walk all the way round
Derry's walls are the headline act. Built between 1613 and 1619, they are among the finest surviving examples of a walled city in Europe and the only ones in Ireland that remain complete. You can walk the entire circuit, roughly a mile, with cannon still pointing out from the ramparts. The walls held firm during the Siege of Derry in 1688–89, when the city's apprentice boys famously shut the gates against James II's army. The siege lasted 105 days and became a defining story in Ulster Protestant memory, still marked each year. The city has other chapters too. The civil rights movement of the late 1960s and the events of Bloody Sunday in January 1972 shaped modern Derry and the wider Troubles. Today the Peace Bridge, opened in 2011, arcs across the Foyle and links the two sides of the river. In 2013 the city was the first UK City of Culture.
Mountains, dunes and a very long beach
The county stretches from the Sperrin Mountains in the south to the north coast. Binevenagh, a basalt escarpment above Magilligan Point, drops down to a sweep of dunes and farmland. Downhill Strand runs for about seven miles, and Magilligan Strand is among the longest beaches in Ireland. Inland, the Sperrins offer quiet, rolling uplands with plenty of hillwalking. Further north the Roe Valley, near Limavady, has riverside woodland and the gentle gorge of the Roe. Limavady holds a quiet musical claim as well: the tune known as the Londonderry Air was noted down there in the 1850s by Jane Ross from a travelling fiddler. It later became the melody for Danny Boy.
Poets, performers and football
The nobel-winning poet Seamus Heaney was born in 1939 at Mossbawn farm near Castledawson in the south of the county, and his poems return again and again to its bogs, wells and fields. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995. Derry also produced the songwriter and pianist Phil Coulter, and the actress Roma Downey of Touched by an Angel fame. The poet and novelist Seamus Deane came from the city as well. Football is a serious matter. Derry City play at the Brandywell and are the only Northern Ireland-based club in the League of Ireland, a legacy of a 1980s decision that kept the club in the southern system. Coleraine, on the River Bann, has its own proud local following. Gaelic games run deep too, with Derry GAA winning the All-Ireland football title in 1993.
Halloween and the taste of the north
Derry takes Halloween seriously. The city's festival is famous across Ireland and Britain, with parades, costumes and fireworks drawing huge crowds. It is often billed as one of the biggest Halloween celebrations on the island. Food is hearty and local. Expect soda bread, potato bread, Ulster fry and fresh fish from the north coast. Inland, farms produce good beef and dairy, and the county's artisan food scene has grown steadily.