The Maiden City Line Dance Championship is the first ever major Line Dance Championship to be held in Northern Ireland. This is an open call to all Line Dancers to give themselves the challenge of being among the best in the UK and Ireland. Never to young and never too old to win.

Some of the most important events in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, following Parliament’s invitation to William of Orange to replace King James II, were the battles that took place in Ireland as James tried to regain his throne. The Siege of Londonderry was central to that story, remembered as much for the fortitude of the besieged as the war of which it was part. The short guide to the Walled City is a journey along the Siege Heroes trail, starting at the Apprentice Boys Memorial Hall and moving anti-clockwise around the famous Walls. It also provides a history of the Associated Clubs of the Apprentice Boys of Derry and an explanation of the events that are part of the Apprentice Boys Annual Commemorations.

MaidenCity.TV is a site for our Festival webcasts, a host for some of the archive concerts and events around the Festival, and a place for views and reviews of Festival performers and performances.  It comes alive during Festival week, but keep an eye on our Facebook page or Twitter feed for when we are making new material available to view.

Combining warmth and elegance with modern facilities, the White Horse Hotel is the ideal venue whether you travel for business or for pleasure.

Located on the main route from Derry-Londonderry to the famous Giants Causeway ensures guests are perfectly positioned to experience both the vibrancy of the historic Walled City and the stunning natural beauty of the North Coast. The White Horse is the most closely located hotel for the City of Derry Airport which is just 1km away.

The Tower Hotel offers 90 standard guest bedrooms and luxurious suites, over 4 floors with a choice of room types to suit your requirements. We have a number of accessible rooms to ensure that each individual guest requirement is catered for.

Our bedrooms are warmly decorated, many of which overlook the historic city walls. Our luxurious suites are located in the Tower section of the hotel. Each suite boasts their own individual entrance hall, leading into the lounge area with floor to ceiling windows offering breathtaking views over the city.

The ships that came to relieve the siege of the city of Londonderry (1688-1689) departed from the quaysides of Liverpool. At the time of the Siege, Londonderry was a significant port to the North Atlantic – Belfast was a late developer. So when it was time to decide on a themed band evening Liverpool fitted the bill perfectly, and the headline performance from the Imperial Corps of Drums seemed perfect billing. The selection of tunes on this site were performed as part the 2010 Maiden City Festival Liverpool themed evening, held in the Apprentice Boys Memorial Hall, 12 August 2010. Each tune has a connection to Liverpool and the combined selection brought a definite Mersey beat to the Foyle.

The Maiden City Festival acknowledged the contribution made by William Love (1908-1966) to band music with a special Tribute concert which is now available online. Born in the Fountain, Londonderry, William Love’s tunes are familiar: Moore Street, Senior Service, Prince of the Realm. Glasgow’s Black Skull Corps of Fife & Drums played a series of his compositions and arrangements as Tribute to William Love, Londonderry’s premier composer of flute band music.

The book by Gardiner S. Mitchell “Three Cheers for the Derrys!” tells the story of men from around Londonderry who went to War 1914-1918. In association with the Playhouse Theatre, the Maiden City Festival explored the story of The Derrys in a number of ways. This website brings together the story of ‘The Derrys’, the 10th Battalion Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, based on the book which has the benefit of reminisces of two old soldiers, Jim Donaghy from Londonderry and Leslie Bell from Moneymore.

The idea of animating the Walls with the story of the Siege has been a long-standing ambition of the Maiden City Festival organisers. The Siege Story in its first year had started on the Walls but suffered from the movement of the characters and inability to casually engage visitors and keep the audience as the characters moved from Walls into the Cathedral. Moving wholly into the Cathedral in 2009 hugely benefited the performance which you can see here. But that left the Walls without the story.

With well over three hundred years of heritage between them, the 150 year old Hamilton Flute Band and the 175 year old Churchill Flute Band were perfect for this 95th Somme Anniversary ‘Tribute to the Somme’ Concert at the 2011 Maiden City Festival. This promised to be a very different evening to our two previous band nights. The part flute bands brought ring a totally different sound to the previous Corps of Drums’ presentations.

The story begins at the door of the Cathedral as an excited young apprentice SPIKE tells of having just shut the city’s gates on the advancing troops of King James… The Siege Story is a series of five monologues, where the audience follows the actors through the story in a linear narrative; this is known as a ‘promenade’ performance. Each performance explores a different aspect of the Siege Story 1688-1689. While we provide the performance online here, there is nothing quite like following this history play in its historic setting. Make sure you visit our live performances next year during the Maiden City Festival.

Oak Grove B&B 3 Columba Terrace, Derry~Londonderry.
Call 028 7133 4269 or 0759 925 271.

NITB Approved.