SquaresRenew 26: Peace Wall
Derry is the only remaining completely walled city in Ireland and has some of the best preserved fortifications in Europe. The walls date from 1618 and were intended to protect English and Scots settlers from the Gaelic chieftains of Donegal. You can walk right round them and in the image above I am standing just outside one of the gates, Bishop’s Gate.
The red brick wall topped with a high green fence to my right is another kind of wall – the “Peace Wall” dividing the Protestant Fountain area from the Catholic Bogside. In Belfast I was shocked to find the “Peace Wall” was still closed at night, but here this seems not to be the case and the wall has been used for an exhibition of words and images from a project uniting women from both communities. To save myself a lot of typing I’ve reproduced the information boards below, and you can read them if you wish.
This reminded me very much of the Reflection Space we visited in Belfast with similar desires for a peaceful future expressed, and I hope such cross-community projects can help Northern Ireland move forward.
Part of Becky’s SquaresRenew Challenge, using images from our April 2024 trip to Northern Ireland to illustrate one or more of the following:
- Move forward
- Reconstruct
- Renew
- Burgeoning
The Glasgow Gallivanter 
If only all battling communities and countries could take notice of the sentiments on the wall….
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If only!
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It seems there is room to grow there when you read words like those. Minds opening—perhaps thanks to the women.
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And if that can be passed on to the children …
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I loved reading all of the wise sentiments… and I learned a new-to-me word: craic.
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The exhibition was very moving – lots of illustrated quotes further round. Sounds like the craic was really good!
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Ah, It was the fountain area where the skeleton figures were. On the airport tourist map we had acquired, a gable end in that district was supposed to have a giant mural of King William on a horse that I wanted to photograph but all we found there was loads of teenagers pouring out of a boys club to defend it against us. I.e. three innocents abroad. We must have exited the divide somewhere as the next street where we asked ” where’s this King Billy mural then.’ It was in the Catholic area. Luckily, it was a couple of girls we asked. Strangers in a strange land moment. Never did find that one to tick it off the tourist map list. Must have been painted out at some point :o) Bob. BSS.
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We did walk through that area and saw some murals, but not the ones you describe. We were looking for a sculpture marked on our map but it turned out to be in a children’s play park so lingering with a camera was not a good idea!
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It is very hard to invade a country and leave a legacy of peace and goodwill. It will be a welcome miracle if peaceful connections can be made to last.
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It certainly will. 🤞🏻
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You don’t need walls when you hold each other up’ is a great sentiment. And I didn’t know that Derry is the only remaining completely walled city in Ireland
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No, nor did I – learnt a lot on this trip!
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I agree with “heyjude”… religions have too often been used to divide people even if we are basically all the same. We need more initiatives to convince people that we aren’t so different after all. (Suzanne)
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Exactly. Trouble is, governments and media like to stir up differences.
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All this division caused by religion. We need more peace and fewer walls.
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Sometimes I think we are making progress, other times it seems we are going backwards.
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There’s a lot of hope in these messages.
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I thought so. For all of us, not just NI.
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Some very moving and poignant quotes on this wall and the cross-community project sounds like a good way of helping people to move forward 🙂
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It does, and reading the stories further round the wall many were from women with young children – if you can get the message across to children hopefully they will grow up with less hatred.
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‘You don’t need walls when you hold each other up’ says it all
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Always ask the women!
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An excellent sentiment!
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With some obvious exceptions of course!
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exactly what I was thinking as I read your post 😀
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