Oak groves were sacred places for the Celtic peoples who once lived over most of Western Europe. 'Oak' place names occur frequently throughout the continent, as well as in Britain and Ireland. This reflects both the widespread nature of the ancient oak forests, and also the important position these trees occupied in the culture and history of the Celts. Derry was almost certainly one of those Celtic ritual places. The taboos and superstitions about the trees of Derry, which survived down to the sixteenth century, clearly hint at the pre-Christian religious significance of this island hill.

First settlement of the area occurred in the year 546 when St. Colmcille built a monastery and named it Doire (Oak).St Columb came out of Donegal to escape the plague 1,400 years ago and founded his first monastery in the oak grove (Doire in Gaelic), a gift from his cousin, Prince of Aileach. The Grianan of Aileach can still be seen a few miles west of the city.

St. Columb said of the city that:'the angels of God sang in the glades of Derry and every leaf held its angel.' This monastery was eventually abandoned. Then in 1613 the city was selected as a major Plantation project started by James I.

The major construction of the town and walls was completed in 1618 to protect settlers from Scotland and England. The wall is more than 24 ft (8 m) high and somewhere more than 27,3 ft (9 m) thick. The Walls of Derry are the only unbroken fortifications in either Ireland or Britain. Thus the reason why the city is sometimes referred to as the Maiden City.

The modern city preserves the 17th-century layout of four main streets radiating from the Diamond to four gateways - Bishop's Gate, Ferryquay Gate, Shipquay Gate and Butcher's Gate. Historic buildings within the walls include the 1633 Gothic cathedral of St Columb and the Guildhall completed in Neo-Gothic style circa 1890. Its stained glass windows illustrate almost every episode of note in the city's history. The story flows up the staircase and floods all the chambers with brilliant light. The story flows up the staircase and floods all the chambers with brilliant light. There is a superb craft village tucked in behind the O'Doherty tower on Shipquay Street. From the quay behind the Guildhall hundreds of thousands of Irish emigrants sailed to a new life in the New World.

St Columba's 'Long Tower' is another very important Derry church. It was the first Catholic church erected in the city after the momentous events of the reformation and plantation. It is decorated in a brilliant neo-Renaissance style. Built originally in 1784, St Columba's occupies the precincts of another of Derry's famous medieval churches the Tempull Mor or Great Church. This was built in the 1160's at a time when a reasonably large township had grown up around the ancient monastery. The Tempull Mor served as the cathedral of the Diocese of Derry throughout the middle ages. Like the distinctively Irish round tower of the same period (hence 'Long Tower'), which stood nearby, all traces of the Tempull Mor disappeared in the seventeenth century.

Although the Vikings certainly sailed up the loughs and rivers of this area, the monastery of Derry escaped the worst effects of their raids. Derry's medieval heydays were in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries when the local Mac Lochlainn dynasty moved into the settlement. Under their patronage, Derry prospered: the population grew; the monastery and its school thrived; and prestigious buildings were erected. With the decline of the Mac Lochlainns, some of whom claimed to be kings of all Ireland, Derry also sank into unimportance.

The famous skeleton on the city's coat-of-arms is said to depict the association with another aristocratic family, the Norman de Burgos, who built their great fortress at Greencastle at the entrance to Lough Foyle. They briefly owned part of Derry in the early fourteenth century and may well have been planning to build a new town there. Instead, the settlement declined in significance. When the local O'Doherty family built a castle in Derry for their overlords the O'Donnells, probably around 1500, it may well have been thought that a new beginning was about to be made. The recently-built O'Doherty Tower is a modern attempt to commemorate that medieval association.

Throughout the second half of the sixteenth century, Queen Elizabeth I's military leaders tried to conquer the province of Ulster, the only part of Ireland still outside English control. The English first came to Derry in 1566 but the garrison established there at that time lasted only a few years. A second, more successful garrison returned in 1600 during the 'Nine Years War' against the Gaelic O'Neill and O'Donnell earls. On this occasion the English managed to hold on to Derry and, when the war came to an end in 1603, a small trading settlement was established and given the legal status of city. In 1608 this 'infant city' was attacked by Sir Cahir O'Doherty (a previous supporter of the English in Ireland), and the settlement was virtually wiped out.

This attack came about shortly after the so-called 'flight of the earls' when the O'Neill and O'Donnell chieftains, together with their principal supporters, fled to the continent, leaving Gaelic Ireland leaderless. The new Catholic king in London, James I, decided to introduce the 'Plantations in Ulster'. This required the colonising of the area by loyal English and Scottish migrants who were to be predominantly Protestant in religion, unlike the Catholic Irish. One part of this colonisation was to be organized by the ancient and wealthy trades' guilds of London. The new county granted to the Londoners and its fortified city, built on the site of the recently destroyed settlement, were renamed Londonderry in honour of this association . The city of Londonderry was the jewel in the crown of the plantations. It was laid out according to the best contemporary principles of townplanning, imported from the continent (the original street lay-out has survived to the present almost intact). More importantly, the city was enclosed by massive stone and earthen fortifications - "the walls"

The new city was slow to prosper. By the 1680's it still had only about 2,000 inhabitants; and yet it was, by far, the largest town in this part of Ireland. Along with most parts of Britain and Ireland, the city suffered from the upheavals in the 1640's. In 1649 the city and its garrison, which supported the 'republican' Parliament in London, were besieged by Presbyterian forces loyal to the King. Among its most famous citizens in the second half of the seventeenth century was George Farquhar, one of the so-called Restoration dramatists.

On April 18 1689, James came to Derry and summoned the city to surrender. The King was rebuffed and actually fired at by some of the more determined defenders. As a policy of 'no surrender' was confirmed, the Jacobite forces outside the city began the famous Siege of Derry. For 105 days the city suffered appalling conditions as cannonballs and mortar-bombs rained down, and famine and disease took their terrible toll. Conditions for the besiegers were no better and many thousands of people died, both inside and outside the walls. The cannons used to defend the city can be seen on the walls and at other places around the city. Finally at the end of July, a relief ship broke the barricading 'boom' which had been stretched across the river, near where the new Foyle Bridge now stands. The Siege was over but it has left its mark on the traditions of the city to the present day.

The city was rebuilt in the eighteenth century with many of its fine Georgian style houses still surviving. George Berkeley, Ireland's most important philosopher, was Dean of Derry (1724-33), and another well-known and eccentric cleric, Frederick Augustus Hervey, the Earl of Bristol, was Bishop of Derry (1768-1803). It was Hervey, the so-called Earl Bishop, who was responsible for building the city's first bridge across the Foyle in 1790. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the port of Derry became an important embarkation point for Irish emigrants setting out for America. Some of these founded the colonies of Derry and Londonderry in the state of New Hampshire. By the middle of the nineteenth century a thriving shirt and collarmaking industry had been established here, giving the city many of its fine industrial buildings. Four separate railway networks emanated from the city, the interesting history of which can be examined at the Foyle Valley Railway Centre.

Amelia Earhart gave the city a much needed boost when she landed here in 1932 becoming the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. Her connection with the city is reflected in a display at the Amelia Earhart Cottage at Ballyarnett. In more recent times the city has become known worldwide on account of the 'troubles'. Less well-known is its reputation voted by the Civic Trust in London as one of the ten best cities of its kind to live in, in the United Kingdom. Derry is an old, beautiful city, set in a surrounding landscape of great natural beauty and diversity.

Today Derry is a cosmopolitan city that has greatly prospered from the advent of the peace process and various European Regeneration schemes. This abridged history of Derry was brought to you by Derry-buzz.

Tower Museum The city's history, vividly presented. Tel. (02871) 372411.

Harbour Museum Preserves the prow of Minnehaha, the last sailing ship to run scheduled services to America. Even during the civil war, she safely delivered 1,000 emigrants to New York each year. Tel. (02871) 365151.