On 15 July 2010, at a televised ceremony in Liverpool, Culture Minister Ed Vaizey opened an envelope and announced the city that would carry a brand-new British honour: UK City of Culture 2013. The winner was Derry, beating Birmingham, Norwich, and Sheffield in the final shortlist. Of the fourteen applicants none had a more complicated case to make. Derry was the smallest city of the four, with the lowest GDP, the highest unemployment, and a name that the bidding process had asked it to brand as 'Derry-Londonderry' to acknowledge the two communities that still called the place by different names. Three years later it would host the festival that proved the entire experiment worked.
The UK City of Culture programme was created in direct response to Liverpool's year as European Capital of Culture in 2008. That year transformed Liverpool's economy and reputation - the city, formerly synonymous with industrial decline and football, became a tourist destination. The British government wanted to bottle the effect and apply it elsewhere. A working group reported in June 2009 recommending the title be awarded every four years starting in 2013. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport administers the programme in collaboration with the devolved governments of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Greater London is excluded except through joint bids with cities outside it. The working group explicitly recommended against franchising the same events to every host - no boilerplate Brit Awards in each city - and instead suggested possible partners ranging from the BBC and Channel 4 to English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund. Each City of Culture would design its own programme.
Derry's year began with a major fireworks display along the River Foyle and ended thirteen months later, having hosted the Turner Prize at the Ebrington Barracks - the first time the contemporary art award had been held outside England. The branding 'Derry-Londonderry-Doire' acknowledged the three names by which the city is known. Culture Company 2013, the body running the year, programmed everything from the All-Ireland Fleadh Cheoil traditional music festival to a major Lumiere light show across the city walls. The Peace Bridge, which had opened in 2011, became a defining symbol of the year - a pedestrian crossing of the Foyle linking the historically nationalist west bank with the historically unionist east. RTE, the Irish state broadcaster, transmitted Holy Week ceremonies from St Eugene's Cathedral across Europe via Eurovision in solidarity with the year. The model was not yet proven; Derry was the first test, and most observers credit the city with proving it worked.
Kingston upon Hull took the title in 2017 with a campaign themed on the city 'coming out of the shadows'. The opening on 1 January 2017 - a fireworks display over the Humber Estuary and a series of sound and light installations called Made in Hull - reportedly drew 25,000 people to a single evening of opening events. By the end of the first week, 342,000 people had participated. A University of Hull report in March 2018 found that the City of Culture year had attracted more than five million visitors, £220 million of investment, and 800 new jobs. Coventry took the 2021 title, postponed to May 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, with £15.5 million in UK government funding and £100 million in additional capital investment. Bradford holds the title for 2025, announced on 31 May 2022 after a record twenty cities and regions submitted bids - including Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon, the first time a Northern Irish joint bid had reached the longlist since Derry. The 2025 title was the first for which the designation was widened from cities specifically to local areas, allowing larger regional partnerships.
When the Culture Minister opened that envelope in Liverpool in 2010, Derry was a city still emerging from the long shadow of the Troubles. The peace process had held for twelve years, but unemployment was high, investment patchy, and the international image of the city was dominated by Bloody Sunday and the Battle of the Bogside. By the end of 2013 the city had hosted nearly a million extra visitors, the Turner Prize, the Fleadh, the Lumiere, and the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race. The Ebrington Barracks - formerly a British Army base on the east bank, decommissioned in 2003 - became a cultural quarter. Critically, the year demonstrated that culture-led regeneration could work in a small, divided, post-conflict city; the model has since been imitated by Hull, Coventry, Bradford, and the soon-to-be-announced 2029 winner. The next contest is being conducted between 2025 and 2026, with Blackpool, Bristol, Exeter, Ipswich, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Swindon, and Wrexham all declaring intentions to bid. Whichever city wins, the experiment they are joining was first proved viable in Derry.
This article is associated with Derry, the first UK City of Culture in 2013, on the west bank of the River Foyle in Northern Ireland at approximately 54.998 N, 7.320 W. The nearest airport is City of Derry Airport (EGAE), six miles north on Lough Foyle; Belfast International (EGAA) lies sixty miles east-southeast. From altitude, look for the walled city core, the Peace Bridge crossing the Foyle just north of the centre, and the cultural quarter at Ebrington on the east bank.