Welcome to Derry/Londonderry, one of my favourite UK cities
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 8 April 2026
⏱️ 8 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
My guest today is Charlene McCrossan of Martin McCrossan City Tours – which has been introducing tourists to this corner of the far northwest of Northern Ireland since the 1990s. She tells me that the Channel 4/Netflix series is bringing in visitors: "People all over the world are watching that show and loving it," she says.
Charlene started a Derry Girls tour in 2020 – starting at the spectacular Guildhall, and incorporating the Derry Girls mural and the mighty walls that wrap around the city.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Calder. It's Wednesday the 8th of April. |
| 0:08.8 | And I'm delighted to be in a cafe in one of my favourite cities in the UK. I'm here with Charlene McRoson of Macrossin City Tours. |
| 0:20.1 | And Charlene, you can reveal which city I am |
| 0:23.3 | and where we are exactly. Yes, we are in the beautiful city of Derry, London Derry, the only |
| 0:28.0 | fully intact walled city in Ireland and we're sitting in Java coffee shop warming up with a |
| 0:33.6 | lovely coffee. Derry London Derry, first of all, is that the correct way to describe the city? |
| 0:40.6 | Well, the original name given to the city in the 6th century was Dura, D-O-I-R-E, meaning Oak Grove. |
| 0:47.9 | And Dura, when anglicised, becomes Dairy. |
| 0:50.9 | And the name Dairy then remained until 1613, until the Londoners |
| 0:56.2 | came over and started building |
| 0:57.9 | the walls. And that's when the name of the city |
| 0:59.9 | was officially changed to London Derry. |
| 1:02.2 | So you can call it Eler, but if you're a bit |
| 1:04.0 | like myself, call it what we truly |
| 1:06.2 | are. Legendary. |
| 1:09.0 | A lot of people |
| 1:10.2 | I am sorry to say will, particularly if they're from Great Britain, |
| 1:14.6 | will know Derry more from what they might remember having seen and third on the TV during |
| 1:22.3 | the troubles in the latter part of the 20th century. Yes, we did experience awful troubles here from 1968 to 1998 |
| 1:31.1 | where roughly, sadly, 3,600 people lost to their lives. |
| 1:36.4 | Now, thankfully, we had our Good Friday Agreement and anniversary of that's coming up now |
| 1:40.7 | in the middle of the month. |
... |
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