Derry-licious...

I'm not sure if I realized it when I applied to the University of Ulster, but the city of Derry has played a prominent role throughout Irish history.

It was here, in fact, that James II was locked out of the walled city by Williamite forces during the Great Siege, thus ending any chance for a Catholic monarch in Great Britain.

It was here that Ulster Plantation was planted in the 1600s, displacing Gaelic Irish and Old English and sparking decades of Catholic complaints of dispossession.

It was in Ulster, in 1641, that the Catholic Irish rose up in rebellion and brutally slaughtered any Protestant in their path -- planting the "siege mentality" amongst the Protestant and giving hundreds of years of monarchs a reason to "punish" the Catholic.

Most recently, Derry was the site of 1972's Bloody Sunday, a day forever etched in the memory of nationalist leaders, when 14 civil rights marchers were brutally murdered by British forces. And throughout the 1970s, Derry was the site of armed warfare between local Catholics and military and loyalist forces, most notably during the Battle of the Bogside and the period of internment.

That's why, I must say, Derry is an ideal place to be a history student.

Without a place to go this weekend and with friends visiting from Belfast, I finally got the chance to see Derry as a tourist over the weekend. Our main destination was the city's ancient walls - built during the 1600s - which once contained the Protestant population behind fortified stone and brick. Inside the cities walls, Williamite forces withstood 105 days of siege and embargo to defeat James II, even resorting to eating the flesh of dying horses, vermin, and dogs to stay alive. As you walk along the walls, you can see evidence of "Old Derry" on the inside - such as St. Columbs cathedral and the Protestant places of power. On the outside, however, you can see Derry's more recent history by walking through outwardly loyalist (Protestant) and nationalist (Catholic) areas, designated by the painted sidewalks. The most famous is "Bogside," a Catholic stronghold that gained fame in the 1970s when the the army and police waged war with the every day citizens. Women, children, and even priests lined up day and night to make homemade petrol bombs at the forces. Oftentimes they watched as innocent civilians were gunned down as they crossed the streets. Today, those days are immortalized in the Bogside murals, the most famous painted at the start of the Battle of the Bogside which says, "You are now entering Free Derry." Today, those murals are actually subsidized by the city and trained artists maintain them. (Pictures are of the group peering from the wall and of some of the murals.)

I've mentioned the murals before but going back to Bogside was made all the more significant this weekend because of the week's reading and lectures. (Also because we found a group of young boys - probably about 8 or 9 years old - hurling insults and rocks at police on the street. A bit eery.)

I've been reading Nell McCafferty's memoir of growing up in Derry. This week, I finally came to the 1970s and saw, through her eyes, the transformation of Bogside from a tightly knit community into a virtual combat zone. McCafferty was part of a number of the marches and battles, so seeing Bogside - even from my wallside perch - helped put a landscape to her prose. Reading her recollections helped put a sense of history to the view.

That's what I find to be so amazing about this experience. Not only am I learning Irish history in my classes - I can actually go see the bullet holes or the city gates on my weekends. I can actually read the journal pages of siege victims in the local Cathedral or walk past the jail cells in Dublin of Easter Rising patriots. The combination is electrifying for a history nerd like myself. I just can't get past how fortunate I am to be here.

One topic that we've discussed in my class on "The Troubles" is the concept of historical memory and its place in sustaining the Northern Ireland Conflict. Throughout the region's history, subsequent massacres, battles, and injustices have imposed on both sides a feeling of besiegement - an unshakable cry of victimhood. It's always, "them versus us" and "what they've done to us for years." And political leaders often use those fears and those insecurities to keep a renewed interest in their cause. For decades after the 1641 rebellion, for instance, British monarchs and military commanders rallied against the Irish under a banner of "revenge for 1641" for years. Catholics, on the other hand, have vivid memory of the penal laws, internment, and nightly raids on their homes. Historical fact - which carries a long history of abuses and sieges on both sides - is often blurred by the community's public and shared memory.

It's even harder to break the cycle, it seems, because so many students go to segregated schools by virtue of their geographical boundaries. So a Protestant child may learn a history entirely different from that of a Catholic.

And the history is often different.

I couldn't stop staring at a memorial posted on the city's walls during our walk. It read:

This memorial was erected to perpetuate the memory of the Rev. George Walker who, aided by the garrison and brave inhabitants of the city, most gallantly defended it through a protracted siege following against an abitrary and bigoted monarch, heading an army of upwards of 20,000 men, many of whom were foreign mercenaries, and by such valiant conduct in numerous stories and by patiently enduring extreme conditions and sufferings, successfuly survived the besiegery and reserved for their posterity the virtues of civil rights and religious liberty.

Now, if I was a Catholic walking past this monument, I might have to give pause.

After all, this "arbitrary and bigoted monarch" was James II, a Catholic run out of his own country and denied his birthright because the birth of a male heir made the rest of the country nervous that the Catholic ascendancy would never end. He was replaced by his Danish and Protestant son-in-law.

And to preserve the virtues of civil rights and religious liberty? Who's religious liberty? The Catholics who then endured years under a system of penal laws meant to strip them of their civil rights? Who lost their lands for being Catholic and therefore traitors?

I suppose history is truly in the hands of those who write it, not those that lived it.

Besides the tours, however, the weekend was filled with fun and revelry. We heard some traditional music at Peader O'Donnels on Friday night before dancing at the Carraic with the other international students. We devoured the "bargain breakfast" at Wheelers - now a weekend staple - and endured a night dancing at Sandino's, a crusty, two story music dive covered in posters of Che Guvvarro which often collects money for political prisoners. (It was an experience, however, that I'm not too keen to repeat. Too many people. Too little space. And way too much smoking.) And we enjoyed plenty of downtime just to sit around and talk at the kitchen table or to walk along the river.

All that fun, however, means a night of work ahead. Better get to it....