Demolish the walls
The Maiden City withstood two sieges without its walls being breached. In the 18th century the city grew too big for its walls and increasingly houses and factories were built on the slopes below. Castle Gate (1803) was the second breach in the walls to deal with increased traffic. Thirty years later businessmen campaigned to demolish the walls entirely to solve the traffic problems. They failed and traffic continued to clog the city's streets.

The Burnderries
Local Irish chief Cahir O'Doherty rebelled in 1608. He attacked 'the sleeping city' at 2am on 19th April and by dawn had taken it. The town was wholly spoiled, ransacked and fired, the most part of the women stripped and led away prisoners. Two months later the English recaptured the city. The head of Sir Cahir and his foster father Riabhach MacDhaibh?id were displayed on a spike at Newgate in Dublin. The MacDhaibh?id clan were later nicknamed 'The Burnderries'.

O'Doherty's Tower
The building that houses the Tower Museum was modeled on the late 15th century castle that once stood near here. The O'Doherty family of Inishowen built the tower house for their overlords, the O'Donnells of Tir Connaill. They paid for the land with 'twenty cows'. The tower house was used as a magazine or ammunition store for the Plantation city.

Paddy's folly and Bridie's Thatch
Builder and community activist 'Paddy Bogside' Doherty sought to restore the shattered heart of the city. Part of his vision to create employment and give people a pride in their shared history was to reconstruct O'Doherty's tower, completed in 1986. The award-winning Tower Museum opened in the building six years later. Doherty also built the Craft Village with its recreated traditional thatched cottage. We called the tower Paddy's Folly because he went ahead and built it when everything around it was being destroyed. It gave us hope at a very bad time.

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