Like most Americans, my ancestry is mixed immigrant. Mom’s people were Italian; Dad was a storytelling Irish rover. I inherited his wanderlust and his love of words. When I decided to dig up the family roots, Northern Ireland was my first stop.
Arriving in Derry (birthplace of my grandmother) as sunset turned the River Foyle into a ribbon of molten gold, I checked into Beech Hill Country House Hotel, a rambling Georgian estate with a superb culinary reputation. My room overlooked a serene sprawling garden and small pond, but I opted for relaxing by the library fire with a toddy of sublime Coleraine whiskey. Hardly a drop of the local distillage ever leaves the district.
In the morning I headed for Derry’s most famous landmark — the City Walls. Built between 1613-18, the mile-long twelve-foot-thick twenty-foot-high wall surrounds the city’s oldest sector and is the finest example of a fortified medieval town still standing in Europe. Midway between two original gates, O’Doherty’s Tower replicates a stronghold built by the O’Doherty clan in 1500 in lieu of paying taxes. Inside, multi-media displays tell of Derry The Maiden City whose walls have never been breached by invaders.
The story begins on a forested riverbank where Saint Columba founded his sixth-century monastery. The place was called Daire, Gaelic for `oak.’ A millennium later, Elizabeth I determined to conquer the North, the only region not under English control. When local chieftains fled to the continent, the new Protestant English King James I planted loyalists throughout the Catholic North and authorized building of a walled city which would be named Londonderry.
Eighty years later, Derry’s position on the Foyle again made it a strategic target. In an attempt to regain his throne from the reigning Protestant monarch, William of Orange, England’s ousted Catholic king James II marched on the city, but a group of apprentice boys locked the gates against the advancing forces. Before supply ships finally rescued the besieged city 105 days later, thousands of citizens had died from starvation.
Further on, I discovered Derry’s role as a Famine emigration port. Indeed, my grandmother had sailed on one of the `coffin ships’ that once moored outside Shipquay Gate. Another display celebrated Derry’s linen industry and its fame as the birth-place of modern shirtmaking. In the final room, I learned about The Troubles.
In October 1968, a civil rights demonstration led by Protestant and Catholic spokesmen petitioning equal opportunities for Catholics in the city’s infrastructure was attacked by police. Six months later the Protestant Apprentice Boys Group stormed The Bogside, a Catholic residential area. British troops were deployed throughout the North. On January 31, 1972 soldiers opened fire on another peaceful protest. The day was called Bloody Sunday, and it left a wound that was slow to heal.
Stepping out into the glaring sun, I climbed the ramparts and stood by a row of cannon that still point toward the Foyle. I tried to imagine the rumble of tanks brought in during The Troubles. But I couldn’t. All around stood evidence of peace in action.
Once one could walk around the Inner City atop its walls. When violence erupted, coiled barbed wire and steel gates were placed at regular intervals preventing access to adjacent rooftops. Now the barricades are down. Once the town council’s Guildhall stood as a monument to Derry’s prosperity. In 1972, it was destroyed and a defense perimeter was built around it. Now the Neo-Gothic structure stands gloriously restored and all may enter freely. Once the Inner City was filled with shops, restaurants and pubs. During The Troubles many buildings were reduced to rubble. Now an organization called The Inner City Trust is breathing new life into one of the most historic bits of real estate in Northern Ireland.
At Derry Craft Village, an arcade reconstructed as it was a hundred years ago, I met Trust founder “Bogside Paddy” Doherty. With his shock of white hair, flashing blue eyes and animated manner, he brought to mind Jimmy Cagney’s portrayal of George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy. But Paddy is no song-and-dance man. Decades ago, Bogside Paddy led every march. He’s still at the center of the action, but now his message is one of peace, partnership and prosperity.
Doherty moves with urgency, as if he will not have enough time to realize all his objectives. En route to Butcher’s Street, once called `the most bombed street in the world,’ passersby greeted him warmly. In Derry’s genealogy center, we climbed to the top floor overlooking the famous murals that cover Bogside housing block walls.
In bold yellow letters on an orange ground, one proclaims “You are now entering Free Derry.” Another portrays civilians being routed by police while a huge visage stares outward with bulging gas-masked eyes. A colorful third salutes the North’s women and features a portrait of Bernadette Devlin, heroine of the troubled times.
Descending to ground level, we entered a darkened theater. “And this,” Paddy beamed, “is our time machine! Via a special-effects-filled audio-visual program narrated by Richard Harris, visitors will travel through 2500 years of Derry’s history and into our future. It opens this September.
At a slower pace, I walked to St. Columba’s, the first cathedral erected by the Anglican Church after Reformation. In the nave, a cannonball that had been fired over the walls during the Siege rests on a stone pillar. Its surrender demand was ignored. On antique row I bought a linen tablecloth embroidered with tiny white flowers. My gran had sewn hundreds of similar cloths to earn her passage to America.
Along Waterloo Street, hailed on both sides of the Atlantic as Musician’s Street, a string of pubs advertised entertainment. I stopped into Peadar O’Donnell’s for a pint. The walls were covered with instruments. In a dim smoky corner, patrons sipped stout while an elderly man in rumpled tweeds coaxed a sad ballad from his fiddle. As I was leaving, he launched into a lively jig and was joined by a girl rattling finger-bones and a fellow thrumming a bodhran.
In nearby Sorrow Square, where families said goodbye before leaving for new homes across the sea, a statuary group honors the sad scene that was repeated there countless times. Aged parents stand stoically beside the Fountain of Life. Twenty feet away, their grandchildren and daughter glance back one last time. The woman’s hand is clasped tightly by her husband as he strides resolutely into the future.
I had tinted my last stop perfectly. In the Guildhall’s Great Hall wooden arches soared high above my head. Late afternoon sunlight streamed through a row of exquisite stained glass windows, each one a scene from Derry’s history. It was hard to believe they had once been blown to bits. Back at Beech Hill too tired for dinner, I had a sweet sent to my room. After only two or three bites of a luscious lemon tart, I fell asleep with the lights on. Hours later when the house was quiet and still. I woke with a start as a young woman dressed in a quaint maid’s outfit peeked in my door. Thinking she’d come to collect my tray, I went back to sleep.
Over a hearty breakfast of porridge laced with cream and honey, I mentioned my midnight visitor to the manager. His eyes registered surprise and he assured me I must have been dreaming because no female staff worked at that hour. Perhaps Beech Hill has a resident spirit.
Recipes
Salmon & Fennel Salad with Lime Dressing
3/4 cup olive oil
Juice of 2 limes
Salt and pepper
2 fennel bulbs, thinly sliced
1/2 pound smoked Irish salmon filet
Salt and pepper
Fresh rocket or arugula greens
Combine olive oil and lime juice with salt and pepper to taste. Toss sliced fennel with lime dressing and set aside. Cut salmon filet in paper-thin slices and arrange in circular patterns on four chilled salad plates. Place a mound of marinated fennel in the center of each plate. Drizzle salmon with a little lime dressing and season with salt and pepper. Scatter fresh or rocket arugula greens over all. Drizzle with extra lime dressing. Makes four servings.
Lemon Tart
Filling
Zest of 5 lemons
Juice of 7 lemons
12 eggs well beaten
1 cup sugar
2 cups heavy cream
Combine the cream, sugar, lemon juice, and lemon zest in a stainless steel saucepan and cook stirring over medium heat until the mixture begins to bubble. Remove from heat. Stir the hot lemon mixture into the beaten eggs very gradually to prevent the eggs from curdling. Let sit for 1 hour. Do not refrigerate.
Pastry
1 2/3 cup flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 pound chilled butter cut into chunks
1 egg yolk
Water to moisten (approx. 1/4 cup)
Combine flour, sugar and butter (using a wire blender, two knives, or your fingers) until the mixture looks like coarse meal. Stir in the egg yolk. Add water gradually while gathering the dough into a ball. Use only enough water to make the dough stick together, too much will make it soggy. Wrap dough in waxed paper and refrigerate for 20 minutes.
Method
Roll the chilled pastry dough to fit a 9″ pie pan. Trim, fit and crimp the edge. Bake the pastry blind (lining with waxed paper) at 325F for 30 minutes. Remove the paper and brush some beaten egg onto the pastry to seal any holes.
Pour the lemon filling into the baked pastry shell through a sieve leaving the zest bits behind. Bake at 200F for 1 hour until the filling has set. Cover with brown paper if the crust begins to darken. Remove from oven and cool at room temperature. Refrigerate until firm. Makes one 9″ pie.
Serve with unsweetened whipped cream on the side.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the September/October 1998 issue of Irish America. ⬥
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