Qualla: Siege of Derry

Siege of Derry: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pierrette13, CC BY-SA 4.0. On 7 December 1688, with a regiment of Catholic soldiers waiting outside the Ferryquay Gate to take possession of the city, thirteen apprentice boys seized the keys from a frightened guard and locked the gates of Derry. The act was, by any reasonable measure, illegal. James II was still King of England, Scotland, and Ireland; the soldiers had every legal right to enter. But James was already in exile in France, William of Orange had landed at Torbay a month earlier, and the apprentices had decided where their loyalty lay. Four months later King James himself rode up to within three hundred yards of the Bishop's Gate and summoned his city to surrender. From the walls came the shout that has echoed in Ulster Loyalist memory for more than three centuries: 'No Surrender!' The siege of Derry had begun.

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Image: Pierrette13 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Siege of Derry: The Closing of the Gates

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The crisis was built on small movements of regiments. James doubted the loyalty of his English troops once the Dutch invasion threatened, so he asked his viceroy in Ireland, the Catholic Earl of Tyrconnell, to send him reliable Irish ones. To replace them Tyrconnell ordered four ...

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Image: Public domain

Siege of Derry: Lundy's Blunder

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit SamMck1992, CC BY-SA 4.0. When James landed at Kinsale on 12 March 1689 with money, French officers, and the diplomatic backing of Louis XIV, Tyrconnell sent Lieutenant-General Richard Hamilton north with 2,500 men to bring Ulster back under control. Hamilton smashed the Protestant Army of the North at th...

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Image: SamMck1992 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Siege of Derry: Roaring Meg

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User: (WT-shared) NorthernCounties at wts wikivoyage, Public domain. Hamilton's army reached the walls on 18 April. The defenders agreed to a two-day delay before talks. But when James himself rode up to Bishop's Gate on the second day, the men on the walls saw it as a breach of agreement. Cannons fired at the king. According to a later account, o...

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

Siege of Derry: The Boom on the Foyle

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NorthernCounties, CC BY-SA 3.0. On 3 June 1689 the besiegers stretched a heavy wooden boom across the River Foyle about halfway between Derry and Fort Culmore, to block any relief ships from reaching the city. On 17 May Major-General Percy Kirke had sailed from Liverpool with three men-of-war and 24 transport s...

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Image: NorthernCounties | CC BY-SA 3.0

Siege of Derry: The Mountjoy

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. On 28 July, on the orders of Frederick de Schomberg, Kirke finally sent four ships up the Foyle. HMS Dartmouth, under Captain John Leake, engaged the shore batteries. Three merchant ships - the Mountjoy from Derry, the Phoenix from Coleraine, and the Jerusalem - sailed for the bo...

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Image: Public domain