Derry’s stone division

By Kate Smith

OF ALL the city walls that were breached in Europe last century, Derry’s was one of the last and one of the oldest. As I stand on the walls looking east across the River Foyle that flows between the old city and the affluent Waterside area beyond, I can imagine the incoming and outgoing mortars and petrol bombs, the figures running to and fro amid the smoke, weapons being reloaded and soaking rags lit. I do so as a peace-time visitor, fascinated and disturbed by this city’s bloody past; uplifted by its brighter future. For the first time, I feel that I understand the rubicon that has been crossed in the history of Northern Ireland.