{"id":586939,"date":"2026-08-08T11:20:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T11:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/586939\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T11:20:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T11:20:16","slug":"irelands-walled-towns-our-citys-walls-are-unique-probably-the-best-in-western-europe-but-also-unknown-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/586939\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland\u2019s walled towns: \u2018Our city\u2019s walls are unique, probably the best in western Europe, but also unknown\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Garvin Kerr loves to be on Derry<\/a>\u2019s walls first thing in the morning. <\/p>\n

His favourite spot is the double bastion<\/a>, where cannons jut out from the fortifications\u2019 southwest corner; Kerr stretches his arm wide to demonstrate a view which seems to take in the entire city, from the Bogside<\/a> below to the Donegal hills beyond. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re up here in the morning, you\u2019re away on your own,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the quiet. You can reflect and just take a breath. <\/p>\n

\u201cI look up to Creggan<\/a>, where I was born, and I think of my parents, and my wife who lived round the corner from me \u2013 we\u2019re 49 years married now \u2013 and I think, this is my wee bit up here.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I look out here now, this is my city,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ve been privileged to be born here, and I love it \u2013 love the people, love everything about it. <\/p>\n

\u201cJust let us tell our story.\u201d <\/p>\n

A former tour guide and now a city centre warden, Kerr has spent decades telling that story. His job is to walk the circuit of the walls, making sure they are clean and safe and checking for damage, as well as talking to any tourists who stop him. <\/p>\n

\u201cI would give them a wee bit of the history, and they think this is fantastic. It\u2019s like the taxi knowledge.\u201d He taps the side of his head with his finger. \u201cYou have the knowledge in there, and you hold it.\u201d <\/p>\n

[\u00a0The walled town of Wexford: \u2018Some people said to us that it must be like living in a prison\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

He demonstrates, laughing at the suggestion the story might be reduced to a \u201cpotted\u201d history. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey were built between 1613 and 1618, so took five years, and started with four gates in the shape of a cross with a diamond in the centre<\/a>,\u201d he begins. <\/p>\n

This was the plantation of Ulster; what is now Co Derry<\/a> was granted to companies in the City of London \u2013 hence the name they gave their new city, Londonderry<\/a> \u2013 to plant, as was the terminology of the time, with English and Scottish settlers. <\/p>\n

Those walls, built to protect them, have survived \u201c400 years, four sieges, 50 years of Troubles<\/a>, never breached, never broken\u201d, says Kerr. <\/p>\n

Today, Derry\u2019s walls are the only complete set remaining in Ireland; roughly 1.5km in circumference and between 3m and 10m wide, it is the only place where it is possible to walk an entire circuit of the walls. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a thoroughfare through the city, so you have locals using it. If you want to go from the bus depot up to the shopping centre, you walk the walls,\u201d says Derry Walls manager Aisling Gallagher. <\/p>\n

\"DerryDerry Walls manager Aisling Gallagher and city centre warden Garvin Kerr. Photograph: Joe Dunne \"DerryDerry which boasts the only complete set of walls remaining on the island. Photograph: Joe Dunne <\/p>\n

\u201cWe also have these large groups of tourists coming on, and they always say how well they look. They\u2019re astonished they\u2019re the most intact walls in Ireland.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is something local people are not only proud of, but keen to share, as Mike and Sue Corcoran from Reading have already found out. \u201cOh, we know, people keep telling us,\u201d says Sue Corcoran.<\/p>\n

Such is the place of the walls in the city\u2019s heart; they are not simply part of its geography, or built heritage, or its history, but also its identity, in all its complexities<\/a>. <\/p>\n

They played a key role in the creation of the Ulster Protestant identity, crystallised by the siege of Derry<\/a> in 1688-89, when 13 young apprentices shut the city\u2019s gates against the approaching army of the Catholic English king James II. <\/p>\n

This would lead, the following year, to the Battle of the Boyne; in Derry, the big date in the parading calendar is not the \u201cTwelfth\u201d of July, marked by the Orange Order, but the Apprentice Boys\u2019 march today. <\/p>\n

Their Memorial Hall stands facing the walls, overlooking the Bogside; high mesh fencing stretching above the parapet of the walls, to protect it from attack, hints at more recent history.<\/p>\n

\"OdhranOdhran Dunne, chief executive of Visit Derry. Photograph: Joe Dunne \"TheThe Apprentice Boys of Derry marching in 2021. Photograph: Charles McQuillan\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

\u201cThe walls didn\u2019t open to the public until the early to mid-90s,\u201d says Odhran Dunne, chief executive of Visit Derry. <\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up just overlooking here, and there were artillery posts and army barracks on these walls. During the Troubles<\/a>, it was really about the British army<\/a>. It was their site.\u201d<\/p>\n

From our vantage point on the double bastion, the story of conflict unfolds beneath us. The murals in the Bogside, now a busy tourist attraction in their own right, tell the nationalist story from the civil rights movement to Bloody Sunday and the hunger strikes. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was struck by this, because I have seen this view on the telly, such a sad view, all through the 80s,\u201d says Nicola Kelly from Kilmore, Co Wexford. \u201cWe met some foreign visitors, and I thought they\u2019d have no idea [about the past], they\u2019re just enjoying it, which is lovely.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s absolutely beautiful,\u201d adds her husband Peter. \u201cThe wall is gorgeous. We\u2019ve been to York, it\u2019s a lovely city as well, with the wall, but this is every bit as nice. It\u2019s a city to be proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n

A short walk away, the red, white and blue bunting indicates the Fountain, a tiny enclave nestled beneath the walls and the only remaining Protestant area on the overwhelmingly Catholic west bank of the Foyle. <\/p>\n

\"TouristsTourists Peter and Nicola Kelly from Kilmore in Co Wexford. Photograph: Joe Dunne \"Derry'sDerry’s walls from the Bogside. Photograph: Joe Dunne <\/p>\n

\u201cThe walls are a microcosm of British and Irish history in one place,\u201d says Dunne. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou look down into the Bogside, and you think of our contemporary story and the Troubles story, but then you also look at the British story, which sits overlooking that. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s the significance for visitors who come here. They can\u2019t believe how close, in reality, all of that is, and how over the years they\u2019ve had to learn to work together and integrate together, sit alongside one another and try and accept one another\u2019s cultures.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t know about the walls before we came here,\u201d say Imma Lloansi and Mario Manzano, from Barcelona. They were interested in the Troubles story \u2013 \u201cit\u2019s something we have seen since we were small, on the news\u201d \u2013 not least because, as Catalans, they believe there are similar issues: \u201cabout independence, about a referendum\u201d.<\/p>\n

So too for Paul Lyant and Liliane Mondini, from Lyons, who wanted to visit Derry <\/a>because it was \u201ca story we\u2019ve heard about, and seen on the television\u201d. <\/p>\n

After the walls, they plan to visit the murals and two museums \u2013 the Siege Museum, in the Memorial Hall, and the Museum of Free Derry, in the Bogside <\/a>\u2013 \u201cso that we will understand [the history] a bit better\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cI love the walk around the walls,\u201d says Tee Poh Suan, from Malaysia. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt made me think of other walled cities like York or in China. The walls are a must-see.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TouristTourist Tee Poh Suan from Malaysia. Photograpg: Joe Dunne \"TouristsTourists Imma Lloansi and Mario Manzano from Barcelona in Spain. Photograph: Joe Dunne <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an old city, a fantastic old city, and so much history behind it,\u201d says Mervyn Mills from Larne, visiting with his cousin Pauline Robinson and friend Linda Reid, from Queensland, Australia. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe heard so much about it, we had to come and have a look,\u201d says Robinson. \u201cI didn\u2019t actually think it would be this wide and I didn\u2019t actually know you could walk around it.\u201d <\/p>\n

Dunne says: \u201cOur walls are unique \u2013 they\u2019re one of the finest examples, probably in the whole of western Europe, of walled cities, and many people have travelled to Carcassonne, Dubrovnik, York \u2013 but they\u2019re also a little bit unknown.\u201d <\/p>\n

From a tourism point of view, \u201cit\u2019s just a great asset to have, because you\u2019re always looking to stand out. It\u2019s not that long ago I remember locals would have been asking tourists, why are you coming here for your holidays? That is fully transformed now, because I think the place believes in itself.\u201d <\/p>\n

Tourism now supports \u201cover 5,000 jobs and generated \u00a394 million [\u20ac110 million] to the local economy last year\u201d, he says. Official figures show overnight stays increased by 34 per cent in 2025, significantly above the Northern Ireland average of 9 per cent. <\/p>\n

The walls are at the heart of this, the focal point of everything from the city\u2019s famous Halloween festival, which celebrates its 40th anniversary next year, to the new generation of fans created by the hit Channel 4 comedy Derry Girls<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe walls are a big feature of that,\u201d says Dunne. \u201cThey [the characters] were Irish dancing on the walls.\u201d<\/p>\n

Behind the scenes, work is always under way to ensure the walls\u2019 future \u2013 to protect and conserve them, as befits a historical monument, but also to open them up further. <\/p>\n

Access to the walls from Stable Lane, closed during the Troubles because of a British army base on the site, was restored only five years ago, while outside Bishop\u2019s Gate \u2013 which sits between the Fountain and the nationalist Bishop Street area \u2013 a cross-community peacebuilding project outlines how the gate in the \u201cdog leg\u201d \u2013 a passageway which \u201callows the concealed movement from one side of an interface to the other\u201d \u2013 recently opened after 40 years. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like the walls themselves,\u201d says Gallagher. \u201cThe evolution of it all is the best thing for me.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re the people\u2019s walls, they\u2019re everybody\u2019s walls,\u201d adds Kerr. \u201cWe learn to share, and that\u2019s what takes you forward, with the peace process, not only to respect each other\u2019s religions and opinions, but to share them too.\u201d <\/p>\n

How Ireland\u2019s walled towns came to be<\/p>\n

\"PartPart of the town wall at Robert Brennan Memorial Park, Abbey Street, Wexford. Photograph: (Nick Bradshaw) <\/p>\n

By Eimear O\u2019Connell<\/p>\n

Irish walled towns are towns that have, or had, defensive walls. In Ireland, the earliest examples of these are associated with Viking or Hiberno-Norse settlements. Later, the Anglo-Norman conquest of Ireland brought with it a wave of town-building, starting in the southeast and expanding outwards.<\/p>\n

The new Anglo-Norman towns were often built at or near existing monastic settlements or on the site of conquered Gaelic strongholds, and the majority of them were walled. This was as a defensive measure, to protect the town\u2019s inhabitants from attack, but also as a means of controlling the trade of goods into and out of the town. Taxes and tariffs were applied at the town gates. <\/p>\n

The earliest town \u2018walls\u2019 in Ireland were a combination of earthen ditches and timber palisade fences. By the 13th and 14th centuries these had mostly been replaced by stone walls, often with towers and wall walks and usually with several gates, giving access to the town from different directions. Today it is largely the stone walls, or remnants of them, that survive. <\/p>\n

The towns featured in this series are all members of the Irish Walled Towns Network<\/a>. The network was founded by the Heritage Council<\/a> in 2005 and is delivered in partnership with local authorities and community groups in 33 member towns across the island. <\/p>\n

The network supports the conservation of town walls and the regeneration of town centres in its member towns by providing training, funding and a forum for knowledge exchange. <\/p>\n

Eimear O\u2019Connell is built heritage officer and Irish Walled Towns Network programme manager at the Heritage Council<\/p>\n

Next week, part three: Athenry<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Garvin Kerr loves to be on Derry\u2019s walls first thing in the morning. His favourite spot is the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9686,7726,61,60,43,2443,976],"class_list":["post-586939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-common-ground","tag-derry","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-northern-ireland","tag-weekendreview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}