Qualla: Free Derry

Free Derry: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit FDW777, CC BY 4.0. Someone painted the words on a gable wall in January 1969, a few days after Royal Ulster Constabulary officers had made an unauthorised midnight incursion into the Bogside and beaten residents in their homes. 'You are now entering Free Derry.' For years it was assumed John 'Caker' Casey had lettered the slogan; after his death it emerged the painter might in fact have been a young activist named Liam Hillen. Either way, the wall and its message became the most famous square of plasterwork in Ireland. For three turbulent years it marked the boundary of a place that operated, for stretches at a time, beyond the reach of the British state.

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Image: FDW777 | CC BY 4.0

Free Derry: Two Thousand Families Waiting

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ardfern, CC BY-SA 3.0. To understand Free Derry, you have to understand the city it grew out of. Derry's population had been majority nationalist since at least the 1920 elections, but the Ulster Unionist Party controlled the local Londonderry Corporation from 1923 onward. They held that grip by gerrym...

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Image: Ardfern | CC BY-SA 3.0

Free Derry: The Battle of the Bogside

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User: (WT-shared) NorthernCounties at wts wikivoyage, Public domain. The summer of 1969 brought the Apprentice Boys' parade - an annual unionist commemoration of the 1689 siege, with marchers passing along the city walls directly above the Bogside. On 12 August fighting broke out as the parade reached Waterloo Place. For three days residents fough...

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Image: User: (WT-shared) NorthernCounties at wts wikivoyage | Public domain

Free Derry: A Place Without Police

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit BevLDY, CC BY-SA 4.0. For weeks the barricades stayed up. A 'peace corps' of volunteers patrolled the streets and manned the entrances. When the British Home Secretary James Callaghan visited the Bogside on 28 August he came without escort, having agreed not to bring police or soldiers. A surging crow...

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Image: BevLDY | CC BY-SA 4.0

Free Derry: Bloody Sunday

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Zubro © 2003, CC BY-SA 3.0. The third Free Derry came after internment without trial began on 9 August 1971. This version was different. The Provisional IRA was now armed, organised, and operating from within the area. The British Army could not enter. The Provisionals, under a young Martin McGuinness, ran ...

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Free Derry: Operation Motorman

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wilson44691 at English Wikipedia, Public domain. Free Derry ended on 31 July 1972. The Provisional IRA had bombed Belfast on Bloody Friday nine days earlier, killing nine people and injuring 130 in twenty-two devices. Political pressure to retake the no-go areas became impossible to resist. Both IRAs decided not to fight - they...

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Image: Wilson44691 at English Wikipedia | Public domain