An attempt to provide a comprehensive account of the Siege of Derry, examining the historical background. The author draws on contemporary accounts, recreating the fluctuating moods of the defenders, the endless quarrelling of the leaders and the privations which left ten thousand dead. The author freely uses the doggerel verse which commemorates the siege to illustrate both the facts and the myths. Sir Patrick Macrory is an historian and the author of Kabul Catastrophe.