400 years of Derry’s Walls celebrated

Two big events took place on Sunday - a mile-long ‘Wave on the Walls’ which was photographed from the air and a ‘1613 Charter Market at the Ship Key’, which saw Guildhall Square transformed into a Living History Square.

The ‘1613 Charter Market at the Ship Key’ saw Londonderry experience some of what made life colourful when Springham and Smithes arrived in Derry to first mark out the site for the Walls in August 1613.

The Holywell Trust’s Mark Lusby, City Walls Heritage Project, said: “Derry Walls Day is the only event in the entire City of Culture year which explores the actual events taking place on the island of Derry 400 years ago.”

The day saw living history performers in authentic costumes from London, Dublin and Antrim, sword-fight demonstrations, pottery, livestock and The Playhouse was commissioned to do a theatrical farce too. Shipquay Place was transformed back to what it might have been like as a Ship Key, before it became Guildhall Square.