The city of Derry is also known as Londonderry. If you are from the Republic, you call it Derry; if you are from Northern Ireland, you call it Londonderry. In the days of road blocks and border checks, if you asked where you were going, you replied “the city” so as to not immediately identify your allegiance. It is a city near the border of the Republic and Northern Ireland that has seen its share of turmoil through the Troubles. There is an small local museum in town that does quite a good job of telling the history of Derry - well worth the visit.

Our opening paragraph for this page has not pleased some of our readers. For exapmple, we received the following email October 22, 2005:

EMAIL SENT FROM WWW.NORSEAODYSSEY.COM

Sender's Name  Declan

Message:  hi, I'm from DERRY, and i read the first few lines of the website and was immediately offended. its completely incorrect to say that "if your from the republic, you call it derry, and if your from northern ireland you call it londonderry". i am furious at this moment in time. i am from derry which is in the north OF irelend. and i refer to it as DERRY. its original name was doire, meaning city of the oak groves and what the website should read is "if you are loyal to the english crown, you refer to it as londonderry, and if not, and you are a republican, you refer to it by its original name, i.e DERRY.

just because the british invaded and decided that they control that part of ireland does not change anything. its still DERRY.

Needless to say, feelings about these things run deep.

There is a high fortress-type wall (completed in 1618) that surrounds the city center and you can walk around on it. There are signs along the way identifying the importance of each area. Above left, the canons still remain, pointing out to sea, from a time when the enemy approached by water.

The portion of the wall at right signifies more recent sentiment “When the law breakers are the law makers, there is no law”.

And on the lighter side, at left is a local pub advertisement we thought was well done. Guiness has its share of advertisements, but the Badger is unique to this one.

At right, you can barely see some of the murals drawn on the sides of buildings demanding no parade (at lower left) and a caricature of the RUC at the right.

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