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Bogside | |
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Neighbourhood | |
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| Coordinates:54°59′52″N7°19′38″W / 54.99778°N 7.32722°W /54.99778; -7.32722 (Bogside) |
TheBogside is a neighbourhood outside thecity walls ofDerry,Northern Ireland. The large gable-wall murals by theBogside Artists,Free Derry Corner and the Gasyard Féile (an annual music and arts festival held in a former gasyard) are popular tourist attractions. The Bogside is a majority Catholic/Irish republican area, and shares a border with theProtestant/Ulster loyalist enclave of the Fountain.
The area now known as the Bogside was originally underwater, as theRiver Foyle originally flowed on both sides of what would becomeDerry, but the area west of the former island eventually dried up into marshland as the Foyle diverted to flow exclusively on the east side. During theplantation of Ulster, the area located west of the River Foyle became known as the 'cityside', and the area across the Foyle became known as theWaterside, while the marshland area to the west of the city became known as The Bogside, with the name first being used in a report bySir Henry Docwra in 1600.[1]
The area has been a focus point for many of the events ofthe Troubles; in 1969, a fierce three-day battle against theRUC and localCatholics—known as theBattle of the Bogside—became a starting point of the Troubles. Between 1969 and 1972, the area along with theCreggan and other Catholic areas became ano-go area for theBritish Army and police. Both theOfficial andProvisional IRA openly patrolled the area and local residents often paid subscriptions to both. On 30 January 1972, a march organised by theNorthern Ireland Civil Rights Association againstinternment that was put into effect the year before turned into a bloodbath known asBloody Sunday. TheBritish Parachute Regiment shot dead 14 protesters and injured 14 more; this resulted in a large surge of recruitment for both wings of the IRA in the city. AfterOperation Motorman and the end ofFree Derry and other no-go areas in Northern Ireland, the Bogside along with the majority of the city experienced frequent street riots andsectarian conflict lasting all the way to the early 1990s. In 1974, the Official IRA declared an end to their armed campaign, with hardline volunteers on the ground already angry about the ceasefire in mid 1972. In result,Seamus Costello and other socialist militants formed theIrish Republican Socialist Movement. This new movement included theIrish National Liberation Army, the paramilitary wing of the IRSM. Derry and particularly the Bogside became one of many strongholds for the INLA; in fact all three volunteers who died in the1981 Irish hunger strike were from Derry or County Londonderry. TheIrish People's Liberation Organisation, a breakaway group of the INLA, made a small but effective presence in Derry. It engaged in a feud with the INLA in the city along with other areas inIreland from 1987 to 1992. The feud ended with the Provisionals stepping in and killing the main Belfast leadership while letting the rest of the organisation dissolve in the rest of Ireland. Throughout the rest of the 1990s, the Bogside became relatively peaceful compared to other localities[citation needed] of Northern Ireland at that time such asBelfast, even though street riots were still frequent.
