How many apprentice boys shut the gates of Derry in December 1688 leading to the siege of the city?
Apprentice Boys of Derry majority, but recently a more conciliatory approach has taken place and now the parades are virtually trouble-free. The 2014 'Shutting of the Gates' parade was described as "the biggest in years" and was violence-free. The siege of Derry began in December 1688 when 13 apprentice boys shut the gates of the city against a regiment of twelve hundred Jacobite soldiers, commanded by the Roman Catholic, Alexander Macdonnell, Earl of Antrim, which was immediately withdrawn. Retaliatory action passed to the Duke of Tyrconnel who assembled a large but poorly ordered Jacobite force commanded by Sir Richard Hamilton to march north against
Apprentice Boys of Derry Apprentice Boys of Derry The Apprentice Boys of Derry is a Protestant fraternal society with a worldwide membership of over 10,000, founded in 1814 and based in the city of Derry, Northern Ireland. There are clubs and branches in Ulster and elsewhere in Ireland, Scotland, England, Australia and Toronto, Canada. The society aims to commemorate the 1689 Siege of Derry when Catholic James II of England and Ireland and VII of Scotland laid siege to the walled city, which was at the time a Protestant stronghold. Apprentice Boys parades once regularly led to virulent opposition from the city's Irish nationalist