THROUGH THE ARCHIVES: Londonderry to once more hear the peals of St Columb’s bells

“The ancient Cathedral of Londonderry occupies so large a place in the most glorious page of Ulster’s history that it may be said to belong not merely to the city of the siege but to the imperial Province,” wrote the News Letter on this day in 1928.

The paper was reporting on the splendid news that the bells of St Columb’s Cathedral had been put back into place at the building after restoration work.

Of the old bells the News Letter noted: “The old peal summoned generation after generation of worshippers to prayer, and so it also served a fitting expression of the feelings of loyal citizens on great occasions. It has rejoiced with them in their rejoicings and sorrowed with them in their sorrowing, and it has marked the going and the coming of the years, ringing out the old and ringing in the new.”

Now the old bells were undergoing a re-birth and “will be endowed with a sweeter and still more splendid tone”, added the paper.

The correspondent added: “The Cathedral authorities have done well in arranging for the re-hanging to make provision for five additional bells, which will give Londonderry’s cathedral one of the finest peals in the British Isles.”

These additional bells had been provided by the kind generosity of the Honourable the Irish Society, the society who 300 years previously had themselves built St Columb’s Cathedral.