The most frequent family names with roots in County Derry — names that spread through Ireland and the Irish diaspora:
Derry city — called Londonderry by the British government and much of the Protestant community — is one of the last completely walled cities in Europe. The walls, built between 1613 and 1619 by the London guilds who funded the Plantation, are 1.5 kilometres in circumference and largely intact. The Siege of Derry in 1689 — a 105-day Jacobite siege that failed — is one of the foundational events of Ulster Protestant identity.
The county is the homeland of Seamus Heaney — Nobel laureate, Ireland's greatest modern poet. Heaney grew up in Bellaghy, County Derry, and the landscape of the county — its bogs, farms, and mythological associations — runs through almost everything he wrote. The Seamus Heaney HomePlace in Bellaghy is now a major cultural centre.
Doherty — from Ó Dochartaigh ('descendant of the obstructor') — is the most characteristic surname of County Derry and the wider Inishowen peninsula. It is among the most common surnames in both Donegal and Derry.
Derry city was one of the great emigration ports of the nineteenth century. Thousands of emigrants departed from Derry Quay for North America — particularly for Canada's eastern provinces (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island). The 'Derry port emigrants' have a distinct genealogical identity.
Love Ireland covers Derry's city walls, the Seamus Heaney HomePlace, the Causeway Coast, and the landscape of the poet's childhood. The county rewards slow reading alongside slow travel.
Subscribe to Love Ireland — FreeIf your family came from County Derry, here's where to start your research:
Common County Derry surnames with dedicated pages on this site: