Garrad Gawler is the author of “The Londonderry Air - Testament of an Ulster Gunman.” For more information see his section on this website.
Some readers of my recent novel “The Londonderry Air – Testament of an Ulster Gunman” question me why characters, who are obviously from the protestant/unionist/loyalist community, use the term ‘Derry’ and not ‘Londonderry’. I was raised in this community in a small village on the north coast of Ireland in the 1950’s and we regularly used the term ‘Derry’. We talked about going shopping in ‘Derry’ and ‘what time is the Derry train?’ The second largest protestant marching society in Northern Ireland is called ‘The Apprentice Boys of Derry’. On the other hand, the county badge on my Boy Scouts uniform called it ‘Londonderry’, the Royal Charter of 1662 named the city as ‘Londonderry’ and the local newspaper, established in 1929, was called ‘The Londonderry Sentinel’.
When the latest wave of ‘troubles’ began, in the 1960s, catholics made a point of referring to the city and the county as ‘Derry’ rather than the official ‘Londonderry’. Unionists now started to insist on ‘Londonderry’. When I sent Christmas cards to relatives in the county I always put ‘Londonderry’ in the address whilst my wife wrote ‘Derry’. It was in the late 1970’s that I first heard the term ‘Stroke City’, in an ironic reference to the BBC who regularly used the term ‘Derry/Londonderry’. This was taken up by Gerry Anderson the BBC broadcaster and is now in common usage. Anderson is one of the few nationalists who portrays a sense of humour about the enigma which is Northern Ireland.
BBC TV recently broadcast a programme about the railways of Ireland and, throughout, the presenter called the city ‘Derry/Londonderry’. The BBC alternately uses both names in the same news item about the city. In an example of life imitating art Mount Cook, the highest mountain in New Zealand, has been renamed Aoraki/Mount Cook after a settlement with the Maori people in 1998.
With the collapse of the British Empire aboriginal people all over the world began to rename their cities and countries without incorporating the stroke. Salisbury (Zimbabwe) to Harare, Bombay (India) to Mumbai, Kingstown (Irish Republic) to Dun Laoghaire and Ceylon to Sri Lanka. I do not expect Adelaide, Melbourne, Boston, Dallas or Seattle to revert. I will not even attempt to comment on Gdansk, St. Petersburg nor Ho Chi Minh City.
I guess it all comes down to who is the majority in a geographical area. There is no doubt that the majority on the west bank of the River Foyle are catholic/nationalists and their council is officially called ‘Derry Council’. The latest census figures available (2001) show that catholics with 55.6% are now the majority in the whole county. So ‘Derry’ it is going to be. My only concern is that in thirty years’ time it might become ‘Al Deerah’.
The people of Northern Ireland can always come up with a joke about their troubles. A young Indian student was stopped at a UDA roadblock in Belfast. When challenged about whether he was a protestant or a catholic he was relieved to reply “Oh no, my name is Ravi, I am a Hindu, I am a visitor from Delhi.” He was surprised when the paramilitaries gave him a hiding with their baseball bats but all became clear when they bundled him back into his car and said, “Remember next time Ravi, it’s Londondelhi.”
THE LONDONDERRY AIR
Testament of an Ulster Gunman
A Novel by Garrad Gawler
It all changed for Charles Cunningham, a Physics teacher at the local College of Technology in the County Derry town of Maddenstown, on a June afternoon in 1973 when a bomb exploded in his neighborhood. He answers an advertisement by the UDR, the Ulster Defence Regiment, but, in the time to come, he will experience the consequences of his decisions, and how his involvement complicates matters with family and friends, Protestants and Catholics alike, to an unexpected degree.
With “The Londonderry Air – Testament of an Ulster Gunman” Garrad Gawler describes in minute detail and with an astonishing level of authenticity not only the inner workings of the Ulster Defence Regiment, but also the activities of underground paramilitary groups of regular citizens who planned and carried out the assassination of suspected Republican terrorists in their neighborhood.
The Londonderry Air is available at Amazon.Com, Amazon Kindle (US), Amazon.co.uk, Amazon Kindle (UK), Barnes & Noble, smashwords.com, and any other good bookstore.
For more information on Garrad Gawler and to read an excerpt of “The Londonderry Air,” please see the author’s section on this website.
