The site for the human settlement that was to evolve into the city of Derry/Londonderry had features, which would prove attractive to potential settlers. It is likely that Mesolithic settlers found their way here from the nearby Mount Sandel along the Bann and Foyle riverways. It is also likely that human habitation continued right up to the early historic period, when it is described as Doire Calgach, a name used right up to the tenth century. Doire, anglicised as Derry, describes an oakgrove and nothing is known of Calgach, who must have exercised some power or influence over Derry.
The contour map illustrates the island nature of the site, formerly encompassed by the River Foyle which, up to some 5000 years ago, flowed around both sides of the island. Over time, the western channel dried out. By 1600, the invading Elizabethan Colonel Henry Dowcra would describe the site as he found it.

The bog which he described was later drained and built upon and came to be known as the Bogside, a name which, in recent times, has gained worldwide recognition.
Thus the “island”, situated some 25 miles inland on the fast flowing river Foyle and surrounded by bog and water, was a site which could provide seclusion and was more defensible than most. The river, which gives access to the North Atlantic, would also play the role of highway for invaders, settlers and emigrants alike and prove a barrier between competing interests in the North West of Ireland.
Its strategic position and comparative seclusion from its surroundings no doubt played a part in the decision to found a monastery there in the sixth century. Its foundation is popularly credited to St. Columba or Colmcille after which it took its second name, Doire Colmcille. Recent research has cast doubts on the authenticity of this claim and suggest an alternative founder. Nevertheless it was an important part of the Columban federation of monasteries and it was from Derry that Columba would depart on his mission to take the Christian message to Scotland and the North of England. Catholic and Protestant traditions both cherish their Columban heritage.
Doire Colmcille it remained from the tenth to the early seventeenth centuries but plans, for the extension of Tudor control over the whole of the island of Ireland, were to change the function of monastic Derry.
The first English garrison established in Derry came about as a result of hostilities between the forces of Queen Elizabeth and John O’Neill, chief of Tyrone. In 1566Colonel Randolph, commanding seven companies of foot and a troop of horse, arrived and set up without opposition.
In a battle, fought five miles north of Derry, Randolph defeated O’Neill but lost his own life in the process. Fortune did not favour the new garrison for by 1568 English forces were forced to evacuate. Pestilence and an explosion in the powder magazine put paid to this first attempt at English colonisation.
The strategic importance of Derry, for English aspirations, is implied in Queen Elizabeth’s communication to the Earl of Essex in 1599:

The capital rebels referred to were the confederation of Irish chieftans, primarily O’Neill and O’Donnell and the establishment of an armed outpost at Derry was to be a means of prosecuting the war from behind enemy lines.
Within a year, on 16 April 1600, the advancement of the Elizabethan cause was realised with the arrival at Culmore of Henry Dowcra, with a force of 4,000 foot and 200 horse. Again Derry was occupied without opposition. A train of events was now in motion which would introduce drastic changes in Derry’s fortunes which would have profound effects locally and nationally, that would be felt right up to the present day.
The Nine Years War ended with the submission of O’Neill at Kinsale in 1603. With Sir Henry Dowcra, designated governor, King James issued a charter for the new “cittie of derrie”.
The expectations were clear.