SNIPPET: In the city center, the old city walls of Derry, built 1613-1618 and still intact except for wider gates to handle modern vehicles, hold an almost mythical place in Irish history. It was here in 1688 that a group of brave apprentice boys, many of whom had been shipped to Londonderry as orphans after the great fire of London in 1666, took their stand. They slammed the city gates shut in the face of the approaching Catholic forces of deposed KING JAMES II. With this act, the boys galvanized the city's indecisive Protestant defenders inside the walls. Months of negotiations and a grinding 105-day siege followed, during which a third of the 20,000 refugees and defenders crammed into the city perished. The siege was finally broken in 1689, when supply ships broke through a boom stretched across the Foyle River. The sacrifice and defiant survival of the city turned the tide in favor of newly crowned Protestant KING WILLIAM of ORANGE, who arrived in Ireland soon after and defeated JAMES at the pivotal Battle of the Boyne. To fully appreciate the walls, take a walk on top of them (free and open from dawn to dusk). Almost 20 feet high and at least as thick, the walls form a mile-long oval loop that you can cover in less than an hours walking. At the corner of Society Street is the Apprentice Boys Memorial Hall (built 1873) which houses the private lodge and meeting rooms of this all-male Protestant organization dedicated to the memory of the original 13 apprentice boys. The end of the siege is celebrated each year with a controversial march atop the walls by the modern-day Apprentice Boys Society on the Saturday closest to the August 12 anniversary date. These walls are considered sacred ground for devout Unionists, who claim that many who died during the famous siege were buried within the battered walls for lack of space. A few more steps take you past the small Anglican St. Augustine Chapel, set in a pretty graveyard, where some believe the original 6th-century monastery of St. Colmcille stood. -- Excerpts, "Rick Steves' Ireland 2005" guide book (Avalon Travel)..