Abhaile Aris meet with Apprentice Boys

Abhaile Aris Trip To Derry to Meet With Apprentice Boys

On Tuesday the 8th May a group from Abhaile Aris travelled to Derry to meet with a representative of the Apprentice boys in Derry. Eamon Deane of Holywell Trust Derry had facilitated this trip at the request of Abhaile Aris.

Today’s trip was part of Abhaile Aris programme entitled “ Process of Nation Building” (PNB). The aims of the PNB programme is to initiate contact with the following sectors, Civic society including the Protestant community North and South, the Unionist community in the North, all the churches, women, Trade union and the business community.

On arriving in Derry we were taken by Eamon Deane to the Apprentice Boys Memorial hall at Society Street where we were met by Apprentice boys member and local historian Mr William Temple.

William gave us all a warm welcome and invited us in to the hall taking us first to the Apprentice Boys chamber. This is the chamber where the Apprentice boys meet at least five times a year. William gave us a history of the apprentice boys how it came about and what it was there to commemorate. He said essentially the Apprentice boys were set up in memory of 13 apprentices who had closed the gates of the City in the face of the invading army of King James in 1688-9. There ensued a siege of the city which lasted for 105 days before it was finally broken by a British frigate at Culmore point on the River Foyle bringing in much needed supplies for the beleaguered inhabitants of the city. It is said that over 4,000 people perished during the siege. The survivors of the siege were forced to resort to eating Dogs and rats, horses etc to stay alive.

William then took us on a tour of the memorial showing us the different meeting rooms of the different protestant groups that meet in the hall namely the Loyal Orders such as the Orange Order the Black Preceptatory and the likes, he explained the difference’s in each group and outlined how each functioned and where each had emanated from and their history to date some of which was very surprising and enlightening.

We next visited the Siege Museum which is housed on the second floor of the building and which contains many artefacts from that period and of course a pictorial history of the apprentice boys in Derry. There was also a large effigy of Lundy who is burnt from a scaffold as part of the celebrations of the lifting of the siege of the city. Lundy it is said was one of the cities commanders who wished to compromise with James army to prevent further misery for the inhabitants of the city and as such was reviled by the people. Though having said that I think with hindsight some Apprentice boys may have a different way of looking at Lundy and feel that maybe his actions were one of concern for the people as opposed to being a traitor. Time Will Tell.

William then took some questions from us around the siege and the make up of the different orders that he had introduced us to and as I said earlier the discussions were very frank, open and informative.
The next part of our trip was the tour of the Derry walls once again we were accompanied by William and I have to say I would recommend him to anyone who would like a tour of the Derry Walls and to hear all its history. He not only talked about the apprentice boys links with the walls and the city but he also gave us a great insight into the ecclesiastical and business make up Derry from around the 15th century up to the present day pointing out all the buildings and churches along the way that made the city what it is today and as I said earlier a lot of surprising revelations.
As someone who was born and raised in Derry I was looking forward to this particular part of our trip. To the Nationalist population of Derry the Walls were a bastion of British rule and were there only for the enjoyment and ownership of the protestant community in the City. After listening to William on the history of the walls I would certainly recommend to the nationalist people of Derry to take a greater interest in the history of Derry and to take ownership of it. Derry Walls is without doubt one of the best examples of a Walled City in Western Europe and as such is a great tourist attraction, which was very evident on the day with a large amount of tourist walking the walls on the day that we were visiting.

On behalf of Abhaile Aris I would like to thank Eamon Deane of Holywell Trust for facilitating this engagement with the Apprentice Boys and in particular I would like to thank William Temple for his courtesy and very informative and enlightening talk and tour of the Apprentice Boys Memorial Hall and the walking tour of Derry’s Walls.

Altogether their were 8 members of Abhaile Aris target group that took part in the meeting all of us were in different ways very impressed by what we had seen and heard. One must remember for all of us this was the first time that we had ever had an engagement like this with the Apprentice boys. We all found it very enlightening and informative and have certainly put to bed a lot of myths that are out there around the Apprentice Boys and indeed the siege of Derry.

We at Abhaile Aris firmly believe that more engagements like this one today would undoubtedly lead people to having a better understanding of each other’s cultures and would certainly pave the way for a better understanding of the cultural diversity that exist between all the people on the island of Ireland. We at Abhaile Aris would like to be part of helping people understand and respect other people’s cultural diversity and to explore through this type of research and discussion concepts essential to achieving conflict resolution and nation building. To this end we intend to foster greater interaction and communication between republican ex-prisoners and all sectors of Irish Society. Any group out there who would like to interact with us through our PNB programme can contact us through the various contact points displayed on our web page.


Gerry Mc Monagle Outreach Worker. Tel: 074 9128610. Mob: 0860637990