The chief event in Derry’s history, and one which is called to the visitor’s attention at every turning-point and stopping-place, was the siege so graphically described by Macaulay.
In brief, the event took place thus:
“A letter was sent to the Earl of Mount Alexander at Cumber in County Down on December 3, 1688, giving the information that six days later certain numbers throughout Ireland, in pursuance of an oath which they had taken, were to rise and massacre the Protestants, men, women, and children. This letter furthermore warned the earl to take particular care of himself, as a captain’s commission would be the reward of the man who would murder him.”
The information reached Derry too late to secure the safety of the city. The terrified Protestants were filled with doubt as to what measures of precaution should be taken. Two companies of the Irish appeared on the opposite bank of the stream, and the officers were ferried over to make proposals for entering the town, which was nearly betrayed into their hands by the treachery of the deputy mayor, who was inclined to favour King James II. Impatient for the return of their officers, the soldiers crossed the river, and came to within three hundred yards of the Ferry Gate.
“The young men of the city observing this,” says Gordon’s “History of Ireland,” “about eight or nine of them, whose names deserve to be preserved in letters of gold, viz., Henry Campsie, William Crookshanks, Robert Sherrard, Alexander Irwin, James Steward, Robert Morrison, Alexander Coningham, Samuel Hunt, with James Spike, John Coningham, William Cairns, Samuel Harvey, and some others who soon joined them, ran to the main-guard, seized the keys, after a slight opposition, came to the Ferry Gate, drew up the bridge, and locked the gate just as Lord Antrim’s soldiers had advanced within sixty yards of it.”
The siege lasted one hundred and five days, during which time the townspeople were reduced to the direst extremities. “Reduced,” writes the historian, “to the extremity of distress, and endeavouring to support the remains of life by such miserable food as the flesh of dogs and vermin, even tallow and hides, nor able to find more than two days’ provisions of such substances, the garrison was still assured by the harangues of Walker, in a prophetic spirit, that God would relieve them; and men reduced almost to shadows made desperate sallies, but were unable to pursue their advantage.” The besiegers had thrown a boom across the river to prevent all navigation, and Kirk, the Orange admiral, had already been deterred by it from attempting the relief of the town. At length two provision ships and a frigate drew near to the city. One ship “dashed with giant strength against the barrier, and grounded, though subsequently floated out into deep water.”
Nearly twenty-five hundred citizens died of famine or at the hands of the enemy during the siege.
Near Londonderry is the Grianan of Aillach, upon which are the remains of what is thought to have been an ancient royal residence which, in splendour and importance, must have ranked high among the ancient palaces of the Irish kings.