Experts to mark 400 years of Derry Walls

AN array of experts will attend a conference in Londonderry in April to mark 400 years since the start of the construction of the City Walls.
By The Newsroom
Published 25th Mar 2013, 10:02 BST

The Walls 400! Conference will take place in the Verbal Arts Centre over April 6 and April 7.

In August 1613, two Londoners, George Smithes and Mathias Springham, arrived in the city with instructions to sort out the contracts for the building the City Walls. Along with ten experienced local officers, they “viewed and trode out the ground at the Derry for the fortification there.”

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The Walls 400! History Conference aims to examine the present-day legacy of those events in 1613.

Speakers include Dr Brian Lacey, who will examine the city before the arrival of the Londoners; Prof James Stevens Curl, who will look at the background to the financing and building of the Walls; Dr Annaleigh Margey who will use 17th Century maps and surveys to examine the place of the Walls in the contemporary landscape and perception; and Eamon McCann who will look at how the communities view the Walls today.

Practical workshops will reveal overlooked features of the City Walls and the bits that have gone missing down through the centuries. There will be also be demonstrations of the weapons, around which the Walls were designed.

Remember, if you miss out on the Walls 400! Conference, the next one will not be until 2413!