Famous QUOTES from Ireland’s county DERRY

“In the nineteen-forties, when I was the eldest child of an ever-growing family in rural Co. Derry, we crowded together in the three rooms of a traditional thatched farmstead and lived a kind of den-life which was more or less emotionally and intellectually proofed against the outside world.” — Seamus Heaney (1939–2013), Nobel Prize-winning poet
“The bog was a landscape that remembered everything that had happened in and to it.” — Seamus Heaney, describing the landscape of his youth.\
“I have walked the roads of Ulster, from Strabane to Derry, and found the people simple and warm-hearted, their hospitality a balm to the weary traveller.” – John Gamble (1770-1831).
“Walk on air against your better judgement.” — Seamus Heaney (from ‘The Gravel Walks’), reflecting the grounded yet ethereal nature of his rural Derry roots.
“And down the Foyle our tug did toil / To the big ship at Movile;” — Mick McGarvey, referencing the River Foyle flowing through County Derry in his poetry.
“Between my finger and my thumb / The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.” — Seamus Heaney (from ‘Digging’), evoking his farming background in Derry.
“I learned that my local County Derry childhood experience, which I had considered archaic and irrelevant to ‘the modern world’, was to be trusted.” — Seamus Heaney (1939–2013),
Though the official name of the city, as of the county around it, has been Londonderry since 1613, the ancient Irish name of the place, Derry, has continued to be used by most people locally and throughout Ireland; and though some Unionists use Londonderry on principle, it is, on balance, I believe, less emotive to use Derry. In Orange tradition it is Derry’s walls (not Londonderry’s) that are the symbol of ‘no surrender’. – Theo” Moody, Belfast born academic (1907–1984).
I had no idea that Derry was so beautiful. Its sandstone walls reminded me of St Malo in Brittany. An asphalt roadway runs along the top of the walls which, speckled with white chippings, gives one the impression of a woodland pathway on which the hawthorn petals of autumn are forever falling. Looking down from the walls, one sees the cemetery where the Catholic dead fill the sloping riverside fields above the Foyle; nearer one’s point of vantage is the Bogside, the story of which would fill many tomes and superficial comment on which would constitute an impertinence. And yet despite its many superficial contradictions this lovely old city conveys a sense of Irishness as valid as that of Dunquin in Kerry or Cashel in Tipperary. Latter-day gates pierce old walls as if to mimic Quebec and the Heights of Abraham. Here cannon mouths appear to gape across the centuries while below the walls the Foyle flows seaward to join the exiles’ ‘bowl of tears’ so that one hums a line of an old ballad: As down the Foyle, the waters boil, an’ our ship stands out from the land.’ In Derry the women are the breadwinners: linen and shirt-making are responsible for this domestic inversion with its resultant social repercussions. In Derry, too, the dirtiest word one can utter is ‘Hong Kong’, as cheap shirts from that city sorely harrass the city’s economy. – Bryan MacMahon 1909-1998), Here’s Ireland (1971).
One quickly becomes aware of Derry as a city where – despite centuries of discrimination and discontent – the Catholic and Protestant strands within Irish Christianity have in some subtle way become interwoven. – Dervla Murphy (1931-2022).
It is impossible to approach the venerable and heroic city of Derry, without being struck with its apparent “fitness” for resisting the assaults of a besieger; its great natural strength is at once apparent; and as we advance nearer and note the high and thick walls by which it is surrounded. – Samuel Carter Hall and Anna Maria Hall, Ireland, its scenery and character (1841-43)
“Perhaps we’re mourning too a passing age/ the Derry homesteads, flax-dams, bagged cement/and benediction.” – Leontia Flynn.
I am on the whole finding Derry the reverse of gloomy. It seems exhilarating, stimulating and curiously exciting – almost intoxicating, even before one has visited the Bogside Inn – Dervla Murphy (1931-2022).
“I walked among their old haunts, the home ground where they bled; And in the dirt lay justice like an acorn in the winter Till its oak would sprout in Derry where the thirteen men lay dead. My heart besieged by anger, my mind a gap of danger / I walked among their old haunts / the home ground where they bled.” — Seamus Heaney (1939–2013), from the poem “The Road to Derry
“Now that Co Derry countryside is as much part of our national imagination as is Patrick Kavanagh’s Monaghan or Yeats’s Sligo.” — Mary Robinson..
“I showed you THE walls and they’re nothing short of spectacular.” – Derry Girls

Famous quotes from Ireland’s counties

Antrim – Armagh – Carlow – Cavan – Clare – Cork – Derry – Donegal – Down – Dublin – Fermanagh – Galway – Kerry – Kildare – Kilkenny – Laois – Leitrim – Limerick – Longford – Louth – Mayo – Meath – Monaghan – Offaly – Roscommon – Sligo – Tipperary – Tyrone – Waterford – Westmeath – Wexford – Wicklow

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County Derry:

Ireland’s county Derry offers a rich historical tapestry, with the city’s 17th-century walls providing a walkable journey through its past. The Guildhall and Tower Museum explore Derry’s maritime and political history, while the Peace Bridge offers scenic views over the River Foyle. Derry is Ireland’s 15th largest county by size (2,067 square km) and sixth largest by population (252,231). Population previously peaked at 222,174 in 1841 and reached its lowest point, 139,693 in 1926. In terms of hospitality, Derry is Ireland’s 16th most visited tourist county with around 135,000 international visitors per year.

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