Derry Journal 250 exhibition opens at Ulster University Magee today

The exhibition features front pages from this newspaper spanning its 250 years of serving the people of the north west in print.

The free to visit, 3-D exhibition is open to the public following the launch and will run at the Magee campus Teaching Centre (MU building) until Friday, August 26.

The Derry Journal - the oldest regional paper in Ireland and the second oldest paper over all - has developed the exhibition to mark the milestone and also to show how events and people have shaped the North West region as we know it today.

Brendan McDaid, Editor of the Derry Journal said: “Our story is very much your story and the exhibition features front pages of the Derry Journal from pivotal moments in history, from the very first front page on June 3, 1772 published in the Diamond area by founding editor George Douglas right up the present time.”

When George Douglas printed the first edition of ‘The Londonderry Journal and General Advertiser’ in 1772 with the aim of ‘exposing flagrant grievances and conveying pleasing, instructing and interesting intelligence’ to the ‘Nobility, Gentry, Clergy and Inhabitants’ of Derry, the population of the city was less than a tenth of what it is today.

In 1772 a bridge had yet to be built, but by the time this paper’s first edition hit the streets Derry was thriving thanks to the flax and passenger trade.

Ulster University’s Magee Campus said they are “delighted to be one of the venues to host a unique commemorative exhibition which showcases front pages from across the Derry Journal’s rich archive history”.

The exhibition will be open to the public following this.