Highways and byways in Donegal and Antrim; (1903) (14586991010)

Identifier: highwaysbywaysin00gwyn_0 (find matches)

Title: Highways and byways in Donegal and Antrim;

Year: 1903 (1900s)

Authors: Gwynn, Stephen Lucius, 1864-1950 Thomson, Hugh, 1860-1920 ill

Subjects:

Publisher: London, Macmillan and Co. limited New York, The Macmillan Company

Contributing Library: Boston College Libraries

Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

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ied that they have a right to be. Theirwalls stand as th£ monument of a siege, more famous than anyother which has been conducted in Great Britain ; of a resist-ance as obdurate as Saragossas, and more fortunate. Moreover,in peaceful modern times the town has thriven and gained aconsiderable commercial importance, chiefly from the success ofits shirt factories. As to its picturesqueness, Derry is totally devoid of anyarchitectural beauties, but its situation lends it a certain charm.It stands on the left bank of the Foyle, where the river is tidal,and at all times a noble stream, over 300 yards wide. Theground on which it stands is a sharply rising knoll, in old dayspractically an island, for the north of the town—still called theBog Side—was an impassable morass. Both banks of the riverare richly wooded and rise into hills; and from whatever point yousee the town you will discern its acropolis, the cathedral stretch-ing up to the sky. The cathedral has been altered greatly since

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214 THE WALLS OF DERRY CHAP. the days when two guns were posted on its roof (then flat), toanswer the fire of Hamiltons army ; but, as Macaulay observes, it is filled with memorials of the siege. Over the altar aredraped captured French colours, with their silk indeed renewed,but the poles and tassels were wrested from the hands ofbesiegers; in the vestibule is a huge shell that was flung intothe town, containing conditions of surrender. But the mainfeature of the town is its wall, on whose top a walk runs, wideenough in places, the inhabitants will tell you, for a carriage andpair to drive along it. On the wall are still mounted the gunsthat were fought in the siege ; one of them retains its name tothis day, Roaring Meg, given from the loudness of its report.And on the west side of the wall rises a column, ninety feet high,topped by a statue of Walker, to whom history (in the person ofMacaulay) has given the chief credit for the famous defence. Close to the cathedral is the central s

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1903

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