Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Hands Across the Divide
Designed by local teacher Maurice Harron after the fall of the Iron Curtain, this powerful
metal sculpture of two figures extending their hands to each other was inspired by the
growing hope for peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland (located in a roundabout at
the west end of Craigavon Bridge).
The Tillie and Henderson's shirt factory (opened in 1857 and burned down in 2003)
once stood on the banks of the river beside the bridge, looming over the figures. In its hey-
day, Derry's shirt industry employed more than 15,000 workers (90 percent of whom were
women) in sweathouses typical of the human toll of the Industrial Revolution. Karl Marx
mentioned this factory in
Das Kapital
as an example of women's transition from domestic
to industrial work lives.
St. Columb's Cathedral
Marked by the tall spire inside the walls, this Anglican cathedral was built from 1628 to
1633 in a style called “Planter's Gothic.” Its construction was financed by the same Lon-
don companies that backed the Protestant plantation of Londonderry. It was the first Prot-
