NORTHERN IRELAND -- The song below came out of comparing the Derry that Phil Coulter grew up in and the Derry that was emerging in 1995. Writing "The Town I Loved So Well," helped Phil come to terms with the trauma all around him. Coulter's words and melody gave voice to the contradiction of pain and resilence, fatalism, and hope and the kind of rueful defiance that marked the people of the North at that time. Coulter, who has played in Carnegie Hall concerts, said, "Derry people have a great sense of Derryness, a great sense of pride in their town. We never really had that naked sectarian hatred that Belfast had. It was softer. Though we had some pretty dark hours, I'm not saying we had it easy, but the kind of mindless savagery found in other places was always missing in Derry. I lived in an area where there only three Catholic families. The kids I played with in the street would have been Protestant. So on the 12th of July, I was gathering up the wood for their b! > onfire. And then on the 15th of August would be the big Catholic ritual, and we'd be gathering in another part of the neighborhood, for that bonfire. My parents never instilled any feelings of bitterness. When you come over the bridge from the waterside to the cityside, turn left up Abercorn road. The big building on the end of the bridge was the Henderson Shirt Factory. That's where the shirt factory horne came in "The Town I Loved So well." A horn went off at ten to eight to let the girls working there know they should be getting in. Another horn would sound at eight 'clock when they were supposed to start work. I would see all the girls scurring down to the shirt factories to work because the ten to eight hooter was the one that would wake us at home. My mother didn't work there but most guys' mums would have worked in the shirt factory or their sisters or aunts. Most of my classmates at St. Columb's College had someone who worked there. John Hume, Brian Friel, Seamus Heaney, and Seamus Deane all emerged from that one place over a 10-year period. Those who don't know Derry think that it was some kind of elite school. It was the only school. St. Columb's was our awakening. We passed exams and went on to university, that was a first. The people of Northern Ireland are very special. They have a great resilence that has allowed them to live through some very dark hours. Even in my own crew, I always have a Northern Protestant because they're great people, great workers, very diligent, and very reliable. You can't exclude them from any scenario. They are very much a part of what makes Northern Ireland. I can understand the fears of decent, ordinary, God-fearing Protestants in the North. They feel the ground is shifting so fast. You cannot disregard those people. They are good people, they are the people that make Northern Ireland what it is. I do a reading called "The Man From God Knows Where" in my set. The story comes from the 1798 Rebellion. The whole monologue is about one of the United Irishmen, a group formed largely by Northern Presbyterians." Here is the song Phil wrote in 1995: THE TOWN I LOVED SO WELL In my memory, I will always see The town that I have loved so well. Where our school played ball by the gas-yard wall, And we laughed through the smoke and the smell. Going home in the rain, running up the dark lane, past the Jail and down behind the fountain. Those were happy days, in so many, many ways. In the town I loved so well. In the early morning the shirt factory horn Called women from the Creggan, the Moor and the Bog While the men on the dole played a mother's role Fed the children, and then walked the dog. And when times got tough, there was just about enough And they saw it through without complaining: For deep inside was a burning pride In the town I loved so well. There was music there in the Derry air Like a language that we all could understand; I remember the day that I earned my first pay When I played in a small pick-up band. There I spent my youth, and to tell you the truth I was sad to leave it all behind me: For I'd learned about life, and I'd found a wife In the town I loved so well. But when I've returned, how my eyes have burned To see how a town could be brought to its knees; by the armoured cars and the bombed-out bars And the gas that hangs onto every breeze. Now the army's installed by that old gas yard wall And the damned barbed wire gets higher and higher With their tanks and guns, oh my God, what have they done To the town I loved so well. Now the music's gone but they carry on For their spirit's been bruised, never broken. They will not forget, but their hearts are set On tomorrow and PEACE once again. For what's done is done, and what's won is won; And what's lost is lost and gone forever: I can only pray for a bright, brand new day In the town I loved so well. -- Excerpt, "Irish America" magazine