Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/883

 LONDONDERRY 853 Maims. There are a large number of artificial caves. The most ancient castle of Irish origin is that of Carrickreagh ; and of the castles erected by the English those of Dungiven, Salterstown, and Muff are still in good preservation. The old abbey of Dungiven, founded in 1109, and standing on a rock about 200 feet above tho river l!oe, is a very picturesque ruin. LONDONDERRY, or DERRY, a county of a city, parlia mentary borough, and the chief town of the county of Londonderry, is situated on an eminence rising abruptly from the west side of the river Foyle to the height of about 120 feet, 4 miles from the junction of the river with Lough Foyle, and 80 miles north- north-west of Belfast. It is still surrounded by an ancient rampart about a mile in circumference and having seven gates, but the buildings now extend considerably beyond this boundary. The sum mit of the hill, which is at the centre of the town, is occupied by a quadrangular area from which the main streets, which for the most part are spacious, diverge at right angles. Some of the original houses with high pyramidal gables remain, but they have been much modernized. The river is crossed by an iron bridge 1200 feet in length. The cathedral in the Later English style, and consisting of nave and aisles separated by pointed arches, with tower and spire at the west end, was completed in 1633 at a cost of 4000, contributed by the city of London. The building is 240 feet in length with a breadth of G2 feet, and the height of the tower and spire is 228 feet. The spire was added in 1788, when the old tower was raised 21 feet, and iu 1302 the spire was rebuilt. The bishop s palace, erected in 1716, occupies the site of the abbey founded by Columba. The abbot of this monastery, on being made bishop, erected in 1164 Temple More or the &quot; Great Church,&quot; one of the finest buildings in Ireland previous to the Anglo-Norman invasion. The original abbey church was called the &quot; Black Church,&quot; but both it and the &quot;Great Church&quot; were demolished in 1600, and their materials used in fortifying the city. There is a large Roman Catholic cathedral. The court-house was completed in 1824 at a cost of about 34,000. For the free grammar school, founded in 1617, a new building was erected in 1814 at a cost of over 14,000. There are a number of charitable foundations. The staple manufac ture of the town is linen, and there are also shipbuilding yards, iron foundries, saw-mills, manure-works, distilleries, breweries, and flour-mills. The salmon fishery on the Foyle is also very valuable. The river affords facilities for a secure and commodious harbour, its greatest depth being 33 feet, with a depth of 12 feet at low water. The port has a considerable coasting trade with Great Britain, exporting agricultural produce and provisions. For the last five years its imports have averaged over 600,000 (chiefly grain and provisions), and its exports, which vary very greatly, over 1 0,000. In 1880 the number of vessels that entered the port was 1569, with a total tonnage of 335,544, the number that cleared 1452, with a tonnage of 326,178. Londonderry returns one member to parlia ment. Tlie population of the city, which in 1857 was 19,399, had increased in 1871 to 25,242, and in 1881 to 28,947. Deny, the original name of Londonderry, is derived from Doirc, the &quot; place of oaks.&quot; It owes its origin to the monastery founded by Columba in 54(3. From the 9th to the llth century the town was frequently in the possession of the Danes, and was often burned and devastated, but they were finally driven from it by Murtagh O Brien about the beginning of the 12th century. In 1311 it was granted by Edward II. to Richard de Burgo. After the Irish Society of London obtained possession of it, it -was in 1613 incor porated under the name of Londonderry. The fortifications, which were begun in 1600, were completed in 1618 at a cost of nearly 9000. Its charter was confirmed in 1662 by Charles II. From April 18, 1690, the Protestants of the north defended themselves within its walls against James II. until the siege was raised in the following August. See the History by Hempton (1861). LONDONDERRY, ROBERT STEWART, SECOND MARQUIS OF (1769-1822), better known by his courtesy title of Viscount Castlereagh, which he held until the last year of his life, the statesman who brought about the union with Ireland, who was foreign minister for ten eventful years, who represented England at the congress of Vienna, [ and who was the recognized leader of the aristocratic and . was thus one year older than his great rival George I Canning. His father, Robert Stewart of Ballylawn in ! the county of Londonderry, and Mount Stewart in Down, had represented the latter county in two Irish parliaments; ! and his marriage with Lady Sarah Seymour Conway,
 * reactionary party which owed its being to the excesses of
 * the French Revolution, was born on June 18, 1769, and
 * daughter of the earl of Hertford, in 1766, had brought
 * him into connexion with many of the great Whig families

of England, as did also his second marriage with the eldest ! daughter of Lord Camden. His elder son, the future I spent only a single year at the English university, and was on his grand tour through Europe when he was sum moned home by his father, who had just been created Lord Londonderry in the peerage of Ireland, to stand for the county of Down as the candidate of the smaller landholders against the influence of the marquis of Downshire. The election cost the new Lord Londonderry 60,000, a sum which crippled him for his whole life. But he was success ful, and the young Stewart entered the Irish parliament as one of the few really independent members who sat there, bound by no ties to a great lord, but the representative of three thousand freeholders of the richest county of the most educated province of Ireland. He joined the opposi tion, like his father before him, and eagerly pressed for the extension of the franchise to the Roman Catholics, even going so far, said his enemies later, as to become a con tributor to the Northern Star of Belfast, the organ of the French Revolution soon showed their influence on his I opinions, as on those of most landed proprietors. His ! necessity of a union between England and Ireland, a practical politicians. But for the time he held firmly to the popular side, voting for the removal of Catholic dis abilities, and the right of Irishmen to trade with India. At last, however, Lord Camden came over to Ireland, in March 1795, as lord-lieutenant, with Mr Pelharn as his secretary, on a mission to tell the Catholics and reformers that they must expect no further relief and no further reform. He took much notice of his sister s step-son, young Robert Stewart, who was quite willing to be won over from the opposition, and who had in the previous year married Lady Emily Hobart, daughter of the late earl of Buckinghamshire, and near relative of many great political personages. Lord Camden used his influ- . ence to obtain for his brother-in-law a viscountcy as same August 1796 he made Robert Stewart, who by his father s promotion had become Viscount Castlereagh, keeper of his signet, an honorary post which merely marked his accession to the Government, and in February 1797 acting secretary in the place of Mr Pelham. Taking office at a time when everything was at the height of confusion, Lord Castlereagh soon began to show his splendid ad ministrative genius, which, indeed, consisted in his &quot;infinite capacity for taking pains&quot; and careful mastery of details. During the rebellion of 1798, when Lord Camden resigned 1 in panic, Castlereagh showed all the qualities of a splendid
 * minister, was educated at a school in Armagh, and pro-
 * ceeded in 1786 to St John s College, Cambridge. He
 * seditious party in Ulster ; but the great events of the
 * thoughts on politics already clearly pointed towards the
 * necessity by this time obvious to all political thinkers and
 * Viscount Castlereagh in October 1795, and in the follow-
 * ing August an earldom as earl of Londonderry. In that