Bahá'í Community of Derry / Londonderry, Northern Ireland

 

THE CITY OF DERRY

(or LONDONDERRY)

 

The city known variously as Derry and Londonderry is one of the largest in Ireland and is the hub of its district. Placed at a strategic crossing point of the River Foyle it has been an important site for thousands of years. 

 

The original name Doire means "a grove of oak trees" in the Irish language. Such places were sacred to the pre-Christian Celts who inhabited Ireland. Later it became an important Christian settlement. In 563 C.E. Columb (Columba), Abbot of Derry, left to carry the message of Christianity to the people of Scotland and played a key role in evangelising that country. His tomb and monastic foundation on Iona are among Scotland's most revered religious sites.

Photo: Derry and the River Foyle

 

In the Seventeenth Century the city was developed with money invested by the city guilds of London, and Derry officially became Londonderry, although to this day the older name is the one more generally used. The defence walls round the city protected it during the siege of 1689-1690, a key episode in the war between King James Stuart and the man who finally replaced him on the throne of Britain and Ireland, his son-in-law William of Orange-Nassau.

Just as the "Derry's Walls" are preserved largely intact to this day - one of the few remaining examples of an entire city wall, and of great historical value - so too, sadly, are the tensions and religious divisions which they came to represent. The Bahá'ís are among the groups trying to heal these divisions.


 

bullet THE BAHÁ'ÍS OF DERRY
bullet SPECIAL AWARD FOR DERRY BAHÁ'ÍS
bullet BAHÁ'Í CENTRE OPENED
bullet STATEMENTS
bullet A TRIBUTE TO PHILIP HAINSWORTH
bullet FOR THE FUTURE

 

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