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I suppose I'll write about my nearest city Londonderry.. directly from Wikipedia 
Derry or Londonderry (I call one part Derry and the other Londonderry)
(Irish: Doire or Doire Cholm Chille, meaning Oak wood of Colm Cille), often called the Maiden City, is a city in Northern Ireland. The old walled city of Londonderry lies on the west bank of the River Foyle, and the present city now covers both banks (Cityside to the west and Waterside to the east) and is connected by two bridges. The district extends to rural areas to the southeast of the city. The population of the city proper was 83,652 in the 2001 Census. The Derry Urban Area (including Culmore, New Buildings and Strathfoyle) had a population of 90,663, making it the second-largest city in Northern Ireland and Ulster, and the fourth largest on the island of Ireland. The wider Derry City Council area had a population of 107,300 as of June 2006. It is one of the few towns in Europe which has not had its defensive walls breached (though the original fortified gates have been replaced). Derry is very near the border with County Donegal in the Republic of Ireland and also serves the west of County Londonderry. The district is run by Derry City Council and contains both Londonderry Port and City of Derry Airport. The city has had a very close relationship with what is now County Donegal for centuries. The person traditionally seen as the "founder" of the original Derry is St. Columba (also known as Colm Cille or St. Columb), a holy man and royal prince from Tír Chonaill, the old name for almost all of modern County Donegal (of which the west bank of the Foyle was a part before 1600). Derry and the nearby town of Letterkenny form the major economic core of northwest Ireland.
The City's History
Early history Derry is one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in Ireland. The earliest historical references date to the 6th century when a monastery was founded there by St. Columba, a famous saint from what is now County Donegal, but for thousands of years before that people had been living in the vicinity.
Before leaving Ireland to spread Christianity elsewhere in the British Isles, Columba founded a monastery in the then Doire Calgaich, on the east side of the Foyle. According to oral and documented history the site was granted to Columba by a local king. The monastery then remained in the hands of the federation of Columban churches who regarded Colm Cille as their spiritual mentor. The year 546 is often referred to as the date that the original settlement was founded. However it is accepted that this was an erroneous date assigned by medieval chroniclers. It is accepted that between the 6th century and the 11th century, Derry was known primarily as a monastic settlement.
The town became strategically more significant during the Tudor conquest of Ireland and came under frequent attack, until in 1608 it was destroyed by Cahir O'Doherty, Irish chieftain of Inishowen.
Plantation Planters organised by London livery companies through The Honourable The Irish Society arrived in the 1600s as part of the plantation of Ulster, and built the city of Londonderry across the Foyle from the earlier town, with walls to defend it from Irish insurgents who did not welcome the occupation.
This Londonderry was the first planned city in Ireland: it was begun in 1613, with the walls being completed 5 years later in 1618. The central diamond within a walled city with four gates was thought to be a good design for defence. The grid pattern chosen was subsequently much copied in the colonies of British North America. The charter initially defined the city as extending three Irish miles (about 6.1 km) from the centre.
The modern city preserves the 17th century layout of four main streets radiating from the Diamond to four gateways - Bishop's Gate, Ferryquay Gate, Shipquay Gate and Butcher's Gate. Historic buildings within the walls include the 1633 Gothic cathedral of St Columb. In the porch is an inscription:
“ If stones could speake then London's prayse should sound Who built this church and cittie from the grounde. ”
17th century upheavals During the 1640s, the city suffered in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, which began with the Irish Rebellion of 1641, when the Gaelic Irish insurgents made a failed attack on the city. In 1649 the city and its garrison, which supported the republican Parliament in London, were besieged by Scottish Presbyterian forces loyal to King Charles I. The Parliamentarians besieged in Derry were relieved by a strange alliance of Roundhead troops under George Monck and the Irish Catholic general Owen Roe O'Neill. These temporary allies were soon fighting each other again however, after the landing in Ireland of the New Model Army in 1649. The war in Ulster was finally brought to an end when the Parliamentarians crushed the Irish Catholic Ulster army at the battle of Scarrifholis in nearby Donegal in 1650.
During the Glorious Revolution, only Londonderry and nearby Enniskillen had a Protestant garrison by November 1688. An army of around 1,200 men, mostly "Redshanks" (Highlanders), under Alexander Macdonnell, 3rd Earl of Antrim, was slowly organised (they set out on the week William of Orange landed in England). When they arrived on 7 December 1688 the gates were closed against them and the Siege of Derry began. In April 1689, King James came to the city and summoned it to surrender. The King was rebuffed and the siege lasted until the end of July with the arrival of a relief ship.
18th and 19th centuries 
The war memorial in the diamond, erected 1927
The city was rebuilt in the 18th century with many of its fine Georgian style houses still surviving. The city's first bridge across the River Foyle in 1790. During the 18th and 19th centuries the port became an important embarkation point for Irish emigrants setting out for North America. Some of these founded the colonies of Derry and Londonderry in the state of New Hampshire.
Also during the 19th century, it became a destination for migrants fleeing areas more severely affected by the Irish Potato Famine.
Partition During the Irish War of Independence, the area was rocked by sectarian violence, partly prompted by the guerilla war raging between the Irish Republican Army and the British Crown Forces, but also influenced by economic and social pressures. In July 1920, several thousand unionist ex-British Army servicemen mobilised to try to drive Catholics out of jobs they had taken during the First World War. Severe rioting ensued and the loyalists launched an assault on St Columb's Cathedral, which was resisted by armed IRA members. Many lives were lost and in addition many Catholics and Protestants were expelled from their homes during the communal unrest. After a week's violence, a truce was negotiated by local politicians on either side.
In 1921, following the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the partition of Ireland, it unexpectedly became a border city, separated from much of its natural economic hinterland in County Donegal.
During the Second World War the city played an important part in the Battle of the Atlantic with a substantial presence from the British Royal Navy and a large number of GIs disembarked here. 19 U-boats of the German Kriegsmarine came into the city's harbour at Lisahally to offer their surrender to the British at the close of the war.
The Troubles 
The "Free Derry" sign in the Bogside: "You are now entering Free Derry" 
The Bogside area viewed from the walls
Catholics in Derry perceived themselves as suffering under Unionist government in Northern Ireland, both politically and economically. In the late 1960s the city became the flashpoint of disputes about institutional discrimination and gerrymandering.
The civil rights demonstrations were declared illegal and then suppressed by the Royal Ulster Constabulary and Ulster Special Constabulary The events that followed the August 1969 Apprentice Boys parade resulted in the Battle of the Bogside, when Catholic rioters fought the police, leading to widespread civil disorder in Northern Ireland and is often dated as the starting point of the Troubles.
On Sunday January 30, 1972, 13 unarmed civilians were shot dead by British paratroopers during a civil rights march in the Bogside area. Another 13 were wounded and one further man later died of his wounds. This event came to be known as Bloody Sunday.
The violence in Derry eased towards the end of the Troubles in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Irish journalist Ed Maloney claims in "The Secret History of the IRA" that republican leaders there negotiated a de facto ceasefire in the city as early as 1991. Whether this is true or not, the city did see less bloodshed by this time than Belfast or other localities.
The city was famously visited by a killer whale in November 1977 at the height of the troubles and was dubbed Dopey Dick by the thousands who came from miles around to see him.
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