Battle of the Bogside

The Bogside is a neighbourhood outside the city walls of Derry, Northern Ireland. The large gable-wall murals by the Bogside Artists, Free Derry Corner and the Gasyard Féile (an annual music and arts festival held in a former gasyard) are popular tourist attractions. The Bogside is a majority Catholic/Irish republican area, and shares a border with the Protestant/Ulster loyalist enclave of the Fountain.

Bloody Sunday, or the Bogside Massacre, was a massacre on 30 January 1972 when British soldiers shot 26 unarmed civilians during a protest march in the Bogside area of Derry, Northern Ireland. Fourteen people died: thirteen were killed outright, while the death of another man four months later was attributed to his injuries. Many of the victims were shot while fleeing from the soldiers, and some were shot while trying to help the wounded. Other protesters were injured by shrapnel, rubber bullets, or batons, two were run down by British Army vehicles, and some were beaten. All of those shot were Catholics. The march had been organised by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) to protest against imprisonment without trial. The soldiers were from the 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment ("1 Para"), the same battalion implicated in the Ballymurphy massacre several months before.Two investigations were held by the British government. The Widgery Tribunal, held in the aftermath, largely cleared the soldiers and British authorities of blame. It described some of the soldiers' shooting as "bordering on the reckless", but accepted their claims that they shot at gunmen and bomb-throwers. The report was widely criticised as a "whitewash". The Saville Inquiry, chaired by Lord Saville of Newdigate, was established in 1998 to reinvestigate the incident much more thoroughly. Following a twelve-year investigation, Saville's report was made public in 2010 and concluded that the killings were "unjustified" and "unjustifiable". It found that all of those shot were unarmed, that none were posing a serious threat, that no bombs were thrown and that soldiers "knowingly put forward false accounts" to justify their firing. The soldiers denied shooting the named victims but also denied shooting anyone by mistake. On publication of the report, British Prime Minister David Cameron formally apologised. Following this, police began a murder investigation into the killings. One former soldier was charged with murder, but the case was dropped two years later when evidence was deemed inadmissible. Following an appeal by the families of the victims, however, the Public Prosecution Service resumed the prosecution.Bloody Sunday came to be regarded as one of the most significant events of the Troubles because so many civilians were killed by forces of the state, in view of the public and the press. It was the highest number of people killed in a shooting incident during the conflict and is considered the worst mass shooting in Northern Irish history. Bloody Sunday fuelled Catholic and Irish nationalist hostility to the British Army and worsened the conflict. Support for the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) rose, and there was a surge of recruitment into the organisation, especially locally. The Republic of Ireland held a national day of mourning, and huge crowds besieged and burnt down the chancery of the British Embassy in Dublin.

Free Derry (Irish: Saor Dhoire) was a self-declared autonomous Irish nationalist area of Derry, Northern Ireland that existed between 1969 and 1972 during the Troubles. It emerged during the Northern Ireland civil rights movement, which sought to end discrimination against the Irish Catholic/nationalist minority by the Protestant/unionist government. The civil rights movement highlighted the sectarianism and police brutality of the overwhelmingly Protestant police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). The area, which included the mainly Catholic Bogside and Creggan neighbourhoods, was first secured by community activists on 5 January 1969 following an incursion into the Bogside by RUC officers. Residents built barricades and carried clubs and similar arms to prevent the RUC from entering. Its name was taken from a sign painted on a gable wall in the Bogside that read, "You are now entering Free Derry." For six days, the region was a no-go area, after which the residents dismantled the barricades and RUC patrols resumed. Tensions remained high over the following months. On 12 August 1969, sporadic violence led to the Battle of the Bogside, a three-day pitched battle between thousands of residents and the RUC, which spread to other parts of Northern Ireland. Barricades were rebuilt, petrol bomb "factories" and first aid posts were established and a radio transmitter ("Radio Free Derry") broadcast messages calling for resistance. The RUC fired CS gas into the Bogside, the first time that gas had been employed by UK police. On 14 August, the British Army were deployed at the edge of the Bogside and the RUC were withdrawn. The Derry Citizens Defence Association (DCDA) declared their intention to hold the area against both the RUC and the British Army until their demands were met. The British Army made no attempt to enter the area. The situation continued until October 1969 when, following publication of the Hunt Report, military police were allowed in. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) began to rearm and recruit after August 1969. In December 1969, it split into the Official IRA and the Provisional IRA. Both were supported by the people of Free Derry. Meanwhile, the initially positive relations between the British Army and the nationalist community worsened. In July 1971, there was a surge of recruitment into the IRA after two young men were shot dead by British troops in Derry. The government introduced internment on 9 August 1971 in Operation Demetrius. In response, barricades were again erected around Free Derry. This time, Free Derry was defended by well-armed members of the IRA. From within the area they launched attacks on the British Army, and the Provisionals began a bombing campaign in the city centre. As before, unarmed "auxiliaries" manned the barricades, and crime was handled by a voluntary body known as the Free Derry Police. Support for the IRA rose further after Bloody Sunday in January 1972, when 13 unarmed men and boys were shot dead by the British Parachute Regiment during a protest march in the Bogside (a 14th man was wounded and died 4+1⁄2 months later). Following the Bloody Friday bombings, the British retook the "no-go" areas. Free Derry came to an end on 31 July 1972 in Operation Motorman, when thousands of British troops moved in with armoured vehicles and bulldozers.

Free Derry Corner is a historical landmark in the Bogside neighbourhood of Derry, Northern Ireland, which lies in the intersection of the Lecky Road, Rossville Street and Fahan Street. A free-standing gable wall commemorates Free Derry, a self-declared autonomous nationalist area of Derry that existed between 1969 and 1972. On the corner is a memorial to the 1981 hunger strikers and several murals. There is also a memorial to those who died engaging in paramilitary activity as part of the Provisional IRA's Derry Brigade. On 5 January 1969 a local activist, long believed to be John "Caker" Casey, but who might have been Liam Hillen, painted graffiti on a gable wall at the end of a housing terrace stating "You are now entering Free Derry". Civil rights activist and writer Eamonn McCann stated: "That phrase, 'You are now entering Free Derry', I take credit for that. It's not an original phrase but it was I who devised it on the night in question and had it put up on the wall, and that's the most enduring thing I've ever written: You are now entering Free Derry. That came from Berkeley in California in 1956 in a Berkeley Free Speech Movement ... And there was a student occupation of Berkeley College ... In the entrance to Berkeley College there was a big sign that said 'You are now entering Free Berkeley' from the Free Speech Movement, and I said, Well that's cool, and then when we came to Derry, I had that put up on that gable wall...." When the British Home Secretary, Jim Callaghan, visited Derry in August 1969, the "Free Derry" wall was painted white and the "You are now entering Free Derry" sign was professionally re-painted in black lettering. The area in front of the wall became known as Free Derry Corner by the inhabitants. It and the surrounding streets were the scene of the Battle of the Bogside in 1969 and Bloody Sunday in 1972. The houses on Lecky Road and Fahan Street were subsequently demolished, but the wall was retained. It has been repainted at frequent intervals. As currently situated, it now lies in the central reservation of Lecky Road, which was upgraded to a dual carriageway sometime following the demolition of the original terraced houses.

St Eugene's Cathedral is the Roman Catholic cathedral located in Derry, Northern Ireland. It is the "Mother Church" for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Derry, as well as the parish Church of the parish of Templemore.

Annette McGavigan (1 June 1957 – 6 September 1971) was a 14-year-old girl fatally wounded by a gunshot in crossfire between British soldiers and the IRA on 6 September 1971. McGavigan's family has claimed that the bullet which killed her was fired by a British soldier.After three years of conflict in Northern Ireland, Annette became the 100th civilian to be killed in the Troubles. No individual has been charged with her death.

The Diocese of Derry (Latin: Dioecesis Derriena; Irish: Deoise Dhoire) is a Latin Church diocese of the Catholic Church which straddles the international frontier between the Republic of Ireland & Northern Ireland. It is in the ecclesiastical province of Armagh. The diocese was established in the year 1158. The diocese consists of almost fifty parishes and some number of religious congregations have houses in various parts of the diocese. The Cathedral Church of the diocese is St Eugene's Cathedral. Nearby is St Columba's Church, Long Tower.

Shantallow (from Irish Seantalamh, meaning 'old land') is a townland in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. It is now part of the city of Derry, and is situated within Derry and Strabane district. It lies within the civil parish of Templemore and former barony of North-West Liberties of Londonderry. The townland is no longer a visible feature of Derry, being mainly built over with 20th-century housing estates.

The Derry Urban Area (Irish: Limistéar Uirbeach Dhoire) is the urban area that includes and surrounds the city of Derry in Northern Ireland, and is part of the Derry City and Strabane District Council area. It had a population of 93,512 in the 2001 census. It is the second largest urban area in Northern Ireland (after Belfast) and the fifth largest urban area in Ireland (after Dublin, Belfast, Cork and Limerick). The Derry Urban Area consists of Derry City, Culmore, New Buildings and Strathfoyle.The Greater Derry area, that area within about 20 miles of the city, has a population of 237,000 and comprises Derry City Council, Limavady Borough Council, Strabane District council excluding the Castlederg area, and parts of North East Donegal in the Republic of Ireland, namely Inishowen, Letterkenny, Ballybofey/Stranorlar and Lifford. The term, like the term Greater Belfast, has no official relevance particularly in this case since it incorporates areas from two jurisdictions, however it is used for ease of reference.

Derry Gaol, also known as Londonderry Gaol, refers to one of several gaols (prisons) constructed consecutively in Derry, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Derry Gaol is notable as a place of incarceration for Irish Republican Army (IRA) members during the Irish Civil War, and for its numerous executions, seven of which took place between 1820 and 1923. On Christmas day 1939 interned Irish Republican prisoners took control of the jail, protesting their continued imprisonment without charges or trials. On 20 March 1943, 21 Irish Republican prisoners tunneled their way out of Derry Jail with the assistance of Jimmy Steele (republican). This escape was referred to as "The Big Derry Jail Escape".

European route E16 is the designation of a main west-east road through Northern Ireland, Scotland, Norway and Sweden, from Derry to Gävle, via Belfast, Glasgow, Edinburgh, previously by ferry to Bergen, Voss, through the Gudvanga Tunnel and the Lærdal Tunnel (the world's longest road tunnel), Lærdal, over Filefjell to Fagernes, Hønefoss, Gardermoen and Kongsvinger. In Sweden, it passes Malung, Falun and ends in Gävle.

The siege of Derry in 1689 was the first major event in the Williamite War in Ireland. The siege was preceded by an attempt against the town by Jacobite forces on 7 December 1688 that was foiled when 13 apprentices shut the gates. This was an act of rebellion against James II. The second attempt began on 18 April 1689 when James himself appeared before the walls with an Irish army led by Jacobite and French officers. The town was summoned to surrender but refused. The siege began. The besiegers tried to storm the walls, but failed. They then resorted to starving Derry. They raised the siege and left when supply ships broke through to the town. The siege lasted 105 days from 18 April to 1 August 1689. It is commemorated yearly by the Protestant community.