·r1-1e crrv oF LON DON DERRY Owing to its long history a.r.d Hs gcogr.:J phical position the city of Londonderry has a distinctive and attractive life of its own. :rt was bor.r.._ pver fourteen hundred years ago, when St. Columba founded a monastery in the oak grove, on the hill where later the rwalJcd city was to stand. It began, therefore, as an ecclesia.stfoal community, surviving for centuries frequent burnings by plunder- ! ing Northmen and native armies. Then in "the sixteenth century, when Ireland became involved in European wars and politics, the I position of Derry at the mouth of one of the great rivers leading I I directly into the heart of Ulstter led to its fortification 'Ll s a garrison I town, important strategically. So it became 1a w1alled city, numbering two sieges in its long and laden story, a~d the second of these makes one of the gre.atest !chapters of history. To anyone interested in olden times Derry has a constant fascination. Us acient wialls s1Hll s;tand and everywhere the present meets lthe past. There are quaint glimpses in unexpected places of sfoitely georgian doorwiays and windows. Old muzzlelodding cannon look do~n on a modern w1arship at the quay side where descendants of Columbia's gulls ·are still crying and calling. Yet it has its own modern life, its clashes of standards and culture, it:.; own intcrcstillig economic and social problems. One of its greatest 1at:trac'Lions is, perh:1ps, the case vvith whid1 one can exchange the country for the city. To the West are the hills of Donegal ; down the broad laugh to the East the headland of Benevenagh stands out against !the sky ; while to the South-East rise the ,rouDided peaks .of the Sperrin mountains.
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