347 years ago this month, 13 apprentices closed Ferryquay Gate (and then the other three gates) to keep the army of Catholic, Divine-right King James II from garrisoning Derry in place of the new Protestant, Parliament-ruled King William III.

We know their 13 names. What were their trades?

In 1615 the London companies were told to settle skilled English workmen and their families in County Londonderry ‘for the increase of our nation … and the strengthening of … towns and places’. Urgently needed were weavers of linen, cloth, fustian (coarse, twilled cotton fabric including velveteen and corduroy); feltmakers, trimmers of hats and hat-band makers: locksmiths; farriers; tanners and fellmongers (who prepared hides for the tanners); shoemakers; girdlers (makers of waistbelts often capable of carrying a purse or weapon); ironmakers and blacksmiths; glass-makers and cutters; pewterers; coast fishermen; turners using lathes to turn wood or metal, including potters); basket-makers; tallow-chandlers (making candles from animal fats - especially sheep and cattle); dyers and curriers (who dressed tanned leather).

These new tradesmen were not to be “common drunkards or persons of defamed or ill life”.

placeholder image — Windows in our Guildhall’s Main Hall.

In May 1616, Londoners visited to assess progress and that “speciall care” be given to report on the welfare of “those children sent lately over for servants and apprentices out of the hospittals [charitable institutions] in London”. “The 12 Children sent over from Xt [Christs] Hospitall arrived all safe and well”. 10 had been placed in Derry and 2 in Coleraine. Many of us must be descended from them.

‘The Honourable The Irish Society and the Plantation of Ulster 1608-2000’ by James Stevens Curl.