Local History: Originally written as an MA thesis in history, Derry beyond the Walls: Social and Economic Aspects of the Growth of Derry by John Hume is an elegant and meticulous study, writes Sean McMahon.
IT was an Irishman, James Orr (1770-1816), the "Bard of Ballycarry", who first wrote "The savage loves his native shore/ Though rude the soil and chill the air". (Look it up!) In some cases this love becomes specific rather than general: topography replaces geography. This is famously true about Derry on the banks of the Foyle, a city of notable chauvinists. If, then, one is to come to an appreciation of John Hume, politician and peacemaker, this localism should not be ignored.
Though internationally known as a statesman, he is probably as proud of his part in helping to found Derry's Credit Union and the Derry Housing Association, and of organising the dramatic motorcade to Stormont in 1964 to campaign for the siting of Ulster's second university in Ulster's second city, as of any achievements since.
It is ironically fitting that this account of the essential creation of his native city should now be published at a time when the place, for the first time in more than a century, shows some of the vigour and optimism of the period of the book. It was originally written as an MA thesis in history, one of Hume's two academic majors. Presented in 1964, its author, at age 27, was poised upon the brink of an unimaginable career. The Derry of his youth more resembled that of 1825, described by him as "a quietly stagnating country town" than the dynamic provider of "shirts for the world" it later became. With many other city industries and docks that not only imported goods for all the territory west of Coleraine and north of Sligo through a busy river but also had its own successful shipyard, it was a kind of beacon for the rest of the country. That light was quenched, with so much else, by the Government of Ireland Act (1920) that cut off its rich hinterland and condemned its steadily growing Nationalist population to second-class citizenship. Yet should its author require a monument to his many civic achievements, all he has to do now is to stand in the Diamond and, like Sir Christopher Wren in St Paul's, look around him.
The Romans, who had nearly as many words for things as the Greeks, called the special atmosphere of a place the genius loci and it was during the period covered by this book that Derry's special genius was forged. Up until the 1840s, it was still the slightly smug Maiden City, securely Protestant, with its own laureate in Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna (1790-1845) who could confidently say that "the Maiden on her Throne, boys,/Shall be a Maiden still". The Great Famine was to change all that. Beyond the walls to the northwest, hunger refugees from Inishowen and other parts of Donegal had settled in what the maps called the Cow Bog. The presence of these immigrants was not greatly resented. They kept to their primitive cabins outside the siege-sanctified walls and let the burgers, free from Plantation loyalty, develop the city.
Inevitably the text shows signs of meticulous research and the scientific restraint that such documents demand. There are no emotional swoops, no dramatic climaxes or staggering dénouement. Yet to the attentive reader the story of urban burgeoning has its own drama and in spite of the judicious prose the story of the growing city and its people remains fascinating.
I should here declare an interest: I, too, am a citizen of that "no mean city" and can visualise the growth of the town I love so well as if in an animated television programme. It seems to me, then, that as an exemplar of urban development it must be of interest well beyond the walls.
The text has been decorated with some of the watercolours of Major John Noah Gosset (c.1790-1870), who was Barrack Master for the Northwest and who has left a fascinating glimpse of the city in 1846, and with many steel engravings of the period. The Ulster Historical Foundation has produced an elegant book, essential for intellectual coffee tables all the way to Bantry Bay.
Sean McMahon is a freelance writer, editor and reviewer. His latest book, The Derry Anthology, was published last year by Blackstaff
Derry beyond the Walls: Social and Economic Aspects of the Growth of Derry, 1825-1850. By John Hume. Ulster Historical Foundation, 173 pp. £10
Sean McMahon