Free Born Fighting by James Webb

among many Irish—was no stranger to conflict. Located in the far north of Ireland where the River Foyle meets a wide, seaworthy Lough of the same name, Derry had been for centuries an accessible safe harbor when ships hit bad weather on the stormy North Atlantic. Founded by the famous missionary St. Columba in A.D. 546, the town was long known for Catholic landmarks that included an ancient cathedral, the Teampul Mor, erected in 1164, a Cistercian nunnery built in 1218, a Dominican abbey and church built in 1274, an Augustinian friary and church, and a Franciscan friary. Its churches and abbeys plus its accessibility from the nearby sea also made Derry an easy target for plunderers. The Danes sacked its churches and burned the city numerous times during the ninth and tenth centuries, followed by the Anglo-Normans, who found it a frequent and choice target throughout the twelfth. For centuries thereafter, Derry became both a favored destination for plundering Irish tribes and a headquarters for others. Between 1560 and 1604 the city was twice laid to ruins during Irish rebellions.
    In 1613, with the settlement of the Ulster Plantation, the English renamed the city Londonderry and over the next six years built a redoubtable series of walls around it that exist to this day. During the rebellion of 1641, seven heavily Scottish regiments whose soldiers were taken from nearby farms and townships defended the city. In 1649, as Cromwell closed in on the hapless King Charles I in London, Londonderry endured a partial siege that lasted several months, largely because the Ulster Scots in and around it had been aligned with the Scottish Covenanters against the king. And now, as troops loyal to James II wreaked havoc through Ulster, the thick stone walls of Londonderry were the reason the people of the countryside poured into the city. They were also the reason that the soldiers under James could not forcefully attack it. And thus began the longest and most famous siege in modern British history.
    The standoff began on December 7, 1688, with the arrival of a Catholic contingent that had been ordered by Tyrconnell to occupy the city. As the soldiers approached, thirteen young apprentices grabbed the keys of the city from a guard and closed the city gates, locking the army out. The army remained and steadily grew. Those inside the city, recently supplied arms and munitions by an English ship, organized its defense and fought. The resulting standoff would not end until August 1, 1689, nearly nine months later, although heavy fighting did not begin until late April. More than seven thousand men, women, and children would perish, some from the siege guns and others through disease and starvation.
    James II elevated the importance of Londonderry in April. Having just arrived in Ireland, the deposed king marched his heavily French army to the city, reinforcing Tyrconnell’s contingent. On April 18, during a cease-fire, the king approached the city gates and offered terms of surrender to the besieged Protestants. His answer was a barrage of cannon and musket fire that killed an officer and several soldiers near him, and a chorus that became the battle cry of those inside.
    “No surrender.”
    The full siege had begun. The surprised James fell back beyond range of the city’s cannons and sat motionless on his horse in a heavy rain for several hours. Back in Dublin, he ordered a trainload of siege guns to Londonderry. By the end of May the city was surrounded by an estimated twenty thousand French and Irish soldiers, and was under a relentless pounding. The siege guns, actually heavy mortars, lofted hundreds of shells above the stone walls, with great impact on the cramped population and the buildings in the city itself. Inside the walls the Protestants chose their leaders, developed military discipline, and began to carefully ration a dwindling supply of food. They also collectively wrote their battle cry in blood, just as the Scottish