Our grey day started off with a walking tour on the wall of the city of Derry. The wall itself used to encompass the original city, with road ways coming perpendicular to each other at the city center, where the town hall would've been. The city was seiged on three separate occasions, but the walls remain standing. In fact there are completely intact, making them the most so in all of Ireland and also the most spectacular city walls in Europe. It is also one of the oldest continually inhabited city in Ireland, dating back to the 6th century. The city, Londonderry, was build adjacent to an older one and was planned by the English, in order to populate this new town with Scots and English that would be in support of the monarchy. This begun a plantation of people in this area who would grow this area and defeat any Irish insurgents. The city was then seiged by Irish rebels in 1641, Scottish Presbyterians in 1649, and in 1688 by the Redshank protestants. The city remained under Union rule arguably even to this day. Tensions however remained very strong between the Protestants and Catholics. People segregated themselves off into distinct areas, which allowed for gerrymandering by the city council. This involved manipulating the district lines of the city in order to give the Protestants a particular advantage, or often just to run down upon the Catholics. Often the technique was used to make it seem like the sectarianism in businesses and housing communities didn't exist. Catholics in the city were selected against in the job market, often being turned away simply because of their religion or national opinions. The same went for the housing market. Catholics were only allowed to buy houses in certain districts and often the time it took to buy one was so extreme that people would have to overcrowd in a single house in order to survive. Doctors have reported finding twenty people split between two rooms in a single house. This gerrymandering resulted in numbers that favored the city. The overall poverty and unemployment rate for the city was average; however the unemployment in the protestant areas was maybe 8%, fairly low, while in the Catholic areas it hovered around 20%. This did not help the political unrest issue.
People started to become very adamant that they did not want any Protestant Union influence in their city, often vandalizing "Londonderry" signs to say "Derry". The most famous being the "You are now entering Free Derry" sign. This sparked a movement to further segregate the city, separating Londonderry from Free Derry, a temporary community of people who opposed the Union influence. This area was made up of the Bogside and Creggan neighborhoods, and in 1969 community activists fought off against the Ulster guards, building barricades to separate themselves. In the same year the Battle of the Bogside occurred, a large extended riot that came in response to the Apprentice Boys, a protestant frat, marching through the bogside area. The conflict between the citizens and police was not resolved quickly enough and the British Royal Guard was called to resolve it. Slowly the IRA came out of the woodwork and began recruiting once more in the area. Sparse battles continued to occur until internment camps were initiated by the government, which means the barricades in Free Derry went back up.
On Sunday January 30, 1972 Catholics gathered for a peaceful protest around the city, intending to end at Guildhall. However, due to military barricades they couldn't complete there intended route so they redirected to the Free Derry Corner. However, at some point in the protest, radical members of the group broke off to harass the members of the barricade with stones. Then, somewhere in the mix, shots were fired by one of the sides and hell broke loose. The British army, at the end of the turmoil, had shot and killed 13 people with another dying from his injuries months later. The exact events that occurred differ depending on who you talk to, though due to the positioning of the bodies and the exit wounds from their bodies, it can be strongly argued that they were all fleeing from their Union pursuers prior to death (i.e. they were a present danger to the police forces and were murdered in coldblood, not defense). A number of others were harmed in the crossfire, and as a result, the eyes of the world turned towards the English to see what their explanation was. There still is not exact agreement on the goings on of that day.
Our tour guides continued to show us around the city, specifically those areas with the political murals. These murals are very similar to those in the Belfast area except many of them are specific to the events of Bloody Sunday, though some are directed forwards peace and respect which is a nice change. Many of the murals were also more permanent than those in Belfast, which were painted over throughout the years to reflect the conflicts of the current day or in an attempt to make them less militarized. Many of the ones in Derry were simply a reminder of those who had lost there lives in the conflict, many blameless citizens just caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
We ended our day in the Free Derry Museum, which was run by John Kenny, the brother of a man who was lost in the Trouble conflicts. The museum was a collection of photographs, letters, munitions, videos, and stories detailing the events that had began the conflict, leading all the way to the current situation. The most shocking thing from that exhibit was a letter from the head of the UVF to the wives of those that were killed by his men. He essentially said some incredibly inhuman things regards 'your husbands were terrorists and were happy to die by our bullets. No apologies.' That was pretty hard to read without feeling some anger.
In all a very dark day, both in the weather and the material covered. Heavy stuff. Tomorrow we have an off day so hopefully that'll be enough time to really defrag my brain over everything we just covered and try to collect myself. More to come on the topic soon. Stay tuned.
People started to become very adamant that they did not want any Protestant Union influence in their city, often vandalizing "Londonderry" signs to say "Derry". The most famous being the "You are now entering Free Derry" sign. This sparked a movement to further segregate the city, separating Londonderry from Free Derry, a temporary community of people who opposed the Union influence. This area was made up of the Bogside and Creggan neighborhoods, and in 1969 community activists fought off against the Ulster guards, building barricades to separate themselves. In the same year the Battle of the Bogside occurred, a large extended riot that came in response to the Apprentice Boys, a protestant frat, marching through the bogside area. The conflict between the citizens and police was not resolved quickly enough and the British Royal Guard was called to resolve it. Slowly the IRA came out of the woodwork and began recruiting once more in the area. Sparse battles continued to occur until internment camps were initiated by the government, which means the barricades in Free Derry went back up.
On Sunday January 30, 1972 Catholics gathered for a peaceful protest around the city, intending to end at Guildhall. However, due to military barricades they couldn't complete there intended route so they redirected to the Free Derry Corner. However, at some point in the protest, radical members of the group broke off to harass the members of the barricade with stones. Then, somewhere in the mix, shots were fired by one of the sides and hell broke loose. The British army, at the end of the turmoil, had shot and killed 13 people with another dying from his injuries months later. The exact events that occurred differ depending on who you talk to, though due to the positioning of the bodies and the exit wounds from their bodies, it can be strongly argued that they were all fleeing from their Union pursuers prior to death (i.e. they were a present danger to the police forces and were murdered in coldblood, not defense). A number of others were harmed in the crossfire, and as a result, the eyes of the world turned towards the English to see what their explanation was. There still is not exact agreement on the goings on of that day.
Our tour guides continued to show us around the city, specifically those areas with the political murals. These murals are very similar to those in the Belfast area except many of them are specific to the events of Bloody Sunday, though some are directed forwards peace and respect which is a nice change. Many of the murals were also more permanent than those in Belfast, which were painted over throughout the years to reflect the conflicts of the current day or in an attempt to make them less militarized. Many of the ones in Derry were simply a reminder of those who had lost there lives in the conflict, many blameless citizens just caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
We ended our day in the Free Derry Museum, which was run by John Kenny, the brother of a man who was lost in the Trouble conflicts. The museum was a collection of photographs, letters, munitions, videos, and stories detailing the events that had began the conflict, leading all the way to the current situation. The most shocking thing from that exhibit was a letter from the head of the UVF to the wives of those that were killed by his men. He essentially said some incredibly inhuman things regards 'your husbands were terrorists and were happy to die by our bullets. No apologies.' That was pretty hard to read without feeling some anger.
In all a very dark day, both in the weather and the material covered. Heavy stuff. Tomorrow we have an off day so hopefully that'll be enough time to really defrag my brain over everything we just covered and try to collect myself. More to come on the topic soon. Stay tuned.