The surname was one of the principal names found in County Londonderry and County Antrim around 1600. The 1659 Census of Ireland shows seven O’Dyman families in Loughinsholin-listed under principal Irish names. In County Londonderry the greatest concentration of Dimond’s was located in the Barony of Loughinsholin in the Parish of Ballyscullion followed by adjoining Tamlaght O’Crilly. In 1663 there were native O’Diamond’s recorded in Maghera Parish. The 1740 Census of Barony of Loughhisholin lists five O’Diamond’s and recorded as Protestant including places Ballynascreen, Banagher, Dungiven, Leck; Desertmartin, Artrea, | Desertlin, | Magherafelt. from the Barony in Derry. There were two great septs of O Cathain. The earlier anglicized form of this name was O'Cahan, and even as late as the beginning of the present century, O'Cahans were still found in Co. Derry: but in modern times the forms Keane, Kane, and sometimes O'Kane, are almost universally used, Keane in Munster and Connacht, Kane in Ulster. O Cathain of Cianacht. The O'Ahernes were originally a Dalcassian sept and up to the middle of the fourteenth century they were dynasts of Uí Cearnaigh, their territory being in the neighbourhood of Sixmilebridge, Co., Clare, not far from the city of Limerick. In the course of time they migrated southwards and in 1659, when Petty's census was taken, the name was numerous throughout Counties Cork and Waterford. The name 'Agherton' (or properly 'Bally O'Hatheran') was given to it by a family of the name of O' Hatheran of Portstewart. Parish of Maghera, County Derry -in the barony of Loughinsholin and the county of Londonderry is a rectory in the province of Armagh and diocese of Derry. The ancient and modern name of this parish is compounded of Magher-na-dra 'the field of vespers'. Maghera, and from County Down; Killylough, Termoneey. There were five Irish migrations to America. The first 1717-18 due to famine. 5000 people-solely from Ulster. Second 1725-29, 6000 people solely from Ulster. Due to famine. Third migration 1754-55 due to famine solely from Ulster [Coleraine, Antrim...on the road to the Giants' Causeway]. Fourth migration 1771-1775, 25,000 people motivated by land evictions in Ulster. Fifth migration 1840 due to famine-greater Ireland. Derry was placed advantageously: the island in the river commanded the passage of the Foyle, at that time the main route into and out of central Ulster; it also stood at the meeting place of the lands of the O'Donnell clan of Donegal and the Ó Neill clan of Tyrone, and the people of Derry were not slow to appreciate their settlement's strategic location. LONDONDERRY was the first ever 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 Diamond, which contains the city Cenotaph. Set on a hill on the banks of the Foyle estuary, strategically close to the open sea, it came under siege and attack for over a thousand years. The modern city Londonderry 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. The famous skeleton on the city's coat-of-arms is said to depict the association with another aristocratic family, the Norman de Burgos, who built their great fortress at Greencastle at the entrance to Lough Foyle. The Waterside is the name given to that part of Londonderry on the eastern side of the Foyle. In the 17th century Protestant immigration claimed over 1/2 million acres as the leaderless Irish were expelled or resettled. In 1719 Bryan, Felix, and Henry O’Dymond were listed as tenants on Hertford Estate, Lisburn, County Antrim. -O’Diamain and later O’Diamond or O’Dimon[d]. In 1795 the Battle of the Diamond in Loughall, Co. Armagh, raised the stakes for sectarian conflict. On 21 September a group of Peep O' Day Boys engaged the Defenders in a fierce battle and afterwards, victorious over the Catholics, the Peep O' Day boys formed the 'Orange Society', named after their hero William of Orange. The city was rebuilt in the eighteenth century with many of its fine Georgian style houses still surviving. George Berkeley, Ireland's most important philosopher, was Dean of Derry (1724-33), and another well-known and eccentric cleric, Frederick Augustus Hervey, the Earl of Bristol, was Bishop of Derry (1768-1803). It was Hervey, the so-called Earl Bishop, who was responsible for building the city's first bridge across the Foyle in 1790. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the port of Derry became an important embarkation point for Irish emigrants setting out for America. Some of these founded the colonies of Derry and Londonderry in the state of New Hampshire. By the middle of the nineteenth century a thriving shirt and collarmaking industry had been established here, giving the city many of its fine industrial buildings. Four separate railway networks emanated from the city, the interesting history of which can be examined at the Foyle Valley Railway Centre. The tourist authorities now speak of the Maiden City, a coy reference to the fact that the city has never fallen to siege. With the plantation of the new colonial settlement at the beginning of the seventeenth century, Derry became Londonderry, in honour of the London merchants who underwrote the expense of this risky enterprise. Saint Columba's 'Long Tower' is another very important Derry church. It was the first Catholic church erected in the city after the momentous events of the reformation and plantation. It is decorated in a brilliant neo-Renaissance style. Built originally in 1784, Saint Columba's occupies the precincts of another of Derry's famous medieval churches the Tempull Mor or Great Church. This was built in the 1160's at a time when a reasonably large township had grown up around the ancient monastery. The Tempull Mor served as the cathedral of the Diocese of Derry throughout the middle ages. Like the distinctively Irish round tower of the same period (hence 'Long Tower'), which stood nearby, all traces of the Tempull Mor disappeared in the seventeenth century.

 

Doire placenames Londonderry Cathedral

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