No Surrender! : The Siege of Londonderry, 1689 [first edition]

There is a saying that the English never remember, the Irish never forget: and this book, in recalling the most notorious siege in British history, also explodes some precious Protestant myths. In 1689 James II, the last Catholic King of Englang, attempted to regain the throne he had lost in the 'Glorious Revolution.' He began in Ireland, where he had the support of Irish Catholics anxious to repossess their ancient lands. But the English and Scottish settlers who had been 'planted' on these lands were not prepared to yield them lightly. Led by a band of impulsive apprentice boys, a party of them shut the gates of Londonderry in the face of King James's Catholic army. The events of the next 105 days nurtured the famous 'siege mentality' which subsequently became the bedrock of Ulster Protestantism. With the gates of Londonderry closed, the town's inhabitants underwent extremes of privation, until relief finally came; thousands died in the meantime, trusting in their Protestant God and William of Orange. Their proud slogan 'No Surrender!', however, remains to this day the ultimate symbol of defiance, and echoes in the 1970s. In this book Tony Gary sets the siege of Londonderry in its historical context, recreating the day-to-day dramas, revealing the dismal blunders made on both sides, and laying bare some of the cherished myths that have surrounded it.