The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #4555   Message #3862047
Posted By: GUEST,DK
21-Jun-17 - 01:09 AM
Thread Name: Londonderry Air's original (Gaelic?) words
Subject: RE: Londonderry Air's original (Gaelic?) words
Would everybody contributing anything other than puns to this thread please check the Standing Stones website above, about nine posts ago. As Lighter said, it's still the standard reference. As far as the name Londonderry is concerned, it is complicated by sectarian bigotry and lack of attention to history. When the 'Flight of the Earls' occurred in 1607 it left large tracts of land forfeit to the crown and the crown then coerced the London companies to fund
and carry out the colonisation which became known as the Ulster Plantation. The companies - Draper's, Goldsmith's, Mercer's, etc., - then changed the name of the area to the County of Londonderry. However, it had NOT previously been County Derry, it was the County of Coleraine since that town was for many years more important than Derry.
The modern Derry/Londonderry controversy is complete nonsense, when I was a boy in Co. Antrim a very long time ago, everybody whatever their religion called both the city and county 'Derry,' we knew the official name but it was hardly ever used. It is ironical that the hardline Protestants who like the 'London' prefix have, or used to have parade banners which reference Derry, Aughrim and the Boyne, and the Orange songbook contains the line 'we'll guard old Derry's walls.'