Derry

Derry Essays 5: Culture bid can help with Derry’s image problem

Norman Hamill on May 3, 2010, 7:45 pm | Readers 67

We have to admit, there’s something absurd about the idea of Derry as a city of culture. It would be OK if the other contenders were Beirut, Kabul, Baghdad and Tehran. But Derry’s competition for The City of Culture title comes from tranquil English cities where history stopped years ago. The maiden city is better known as a city of strife. Its big quarrel has only been going for 300 years. Where else would a competition about culture start with …

Derry Essays 4: We are the greatest…

Garbhan Downey on April 29, 2010, 4:40 pm | Readers 20

I have written many times about Derry’s importance as a European cultural capital [1], and every time I’ve met with relentless patronising from subjects of much-lesser cities whose only notable attribute is size. There’s a small snigger, accompanied by an oh-so-clever remark about “chips on his shoulder” as they slope back to their generic lattes, in generic cafés in Blandland. I’ve lived in, worked in, or visited every Irish city – and quite a few in Britain besides. And let …

How free is ‘Free Derry’?

Mick Fealty on April 27, 2010, 3:24 pm | Readers 262

There’s a fascinating story on the front page of the Derry Journal this morning. It goes to the heart of one the issues raised by the public meet up at the Cafe del Mondo yesterday: just how free is Free Derry? In fact Journal story is something of bureaucratic row over the siting of a poster just behind Free Derry Corner. The miscreant, according to Sinn Fein, is Eamonn McCann and his People Before Profit organisation who whacked his posters …

Derry Essay 3: Sharing our Past, Sharing our Future

Paul Mullan on April 26, 2010, 3:51 pm | Readers 49

A couple of years ago at an event to promote the Walled City cultural tourism attractions at Stormont, Martin McGuinness talked about ‘Derry’ and ‘Londonderry’. With those two words he gave explicit recognition to the multiple narratives that are required to tell Northern Ireland’s story. The story that Derry/Londonderry wishes to tell entwines Colmcille, Plantation, 1689, and Free Derry with a cultural story that brings us into the present day. What was impressive about that event was how this rich …

Slugger ‘talking local’ in Derry next week…

Mick Fealty on April 23, 2010, 4:30 pm | Readers 1

I’m going to be in Derry for a few days next week. I’m keen to organise an informal get together for people already involved in social media or keen to get more involved in it. In particular I want to look at how the bid for the City of Culture might be made more open and facilitate greater input from ordinary citizens. But we are also planning to set up a freestanding and independent hyperlocal social media hub to help, …

Derry Essays 2: A city on the border…

Niall Ó Dochartaigh on April 23, 2010, 2:54 pm | Readers 128

Derry is in the UK, true enough, but not only in the UK. The potential ‘UK City of Culture’ now stretches well beyond the boundaries of the state. Housing estates full of Derry commuters have sprung up in recent years on all the roads that stretch north, south and west of the city centre and across the nearby international boundary. Some people jokingly refer to Golan Hill on the outskirts of Buncrana in Co Donegal as ‘Golan Heights’ because there …

Derry Essays 1: Precarious future of the living Protestant heritage

Brian Walker on April 21, 2010, 2:54 pm | Readers 210

“Derry/Londonderry” is either an expression or stalemate or a statement of intent to create a truly shared future. The UK City of culture bid should help decide which it really is. Outwardly, the Jerusalem of Ulster where I grew up over half century ago has survived far better than I could have hoped. The physical layout is still the perfect metaphor for Northern Ireland’s sectarian divide. Proud citadel towers over huddled masses in an area below obligingly called the Bogside. …

Derry Essay Series…

Mick Fealty on April 21, 2010, 1:11 pm | Readers 16

As a foil (pun intended) to the reductive scrapping of the election campaigns, we’re running an essay series focused on Derry (or if you insist, Londonderry). The news hook is the city’s UK of culture bid which will be submitted in the third week of May, I think. But our aim is not to underwrite the big, so much as to find as many different (and differing) voices to describe the problem by exploring the Derry experience(s) through a number …