Right, so as usual I have had a valid opinion and Republican/Marxist Twitter have attempted to ratio me for it.

So here’s a thread on why Derry and Londonderry are equally valid names for the city, addressing what people have said to me.

Yes, historically, the origin of the name Londonderry was British imperialism. But it is surely possible for the meaning of names to shift over time. Many people refer to the city solely as Londonderry, or a mix of the 2, in contexts totally detached from support for imperialism.

Moreover, the vast majority of proponents of the name Londonderry are people from a unionist community background. You may not agree with unionism - I don’t. But people of a unionist community background have a valid place in NI and deserve to be included.

Clearly, claiming one name for the city isn’t valid, whichever name that is, is a proxy for the erasure of one side of the community by others, and an attempt at the delegitimisation of their place in NI.

Of course I’m not saying people aren’t entitled to their own choice of name. They are.

It’s just no one’s place to tell other people that the name they use for the city is ‘wrong’.

It’d be ridiculous to launch into an argument about imperialism to someone who has used the term Londonderry in passing in regular conversation, because clearly in conversational etc contexts its meaning is now detached from imperialism.

“But how can you support the Irish language, while arguing both names for the city are valid?”

Because the damage to the Irish language is tangible damage from imperialism we as a society should work to repair -

Whereas the imposition of the name Londonderry is much more symbolic, is detached from imperialism in the modern day, and does not prevent anyone today saying Derry or the formal usage of the term Derry in many contexts.

This is an important point. If the usage of Londonderry was coupled with active measures to prevent people using the term Derry, clearly that would be what some have termed ‘Irish erasure’. But currently there is freedom to use both terms.

“How can you claim to have left politics but think both names for the city are valid?”

As I’ve argued, the name is detached from imperialism in most contexts now. I don’t buy this idea that you have to be a republican to be a “real” leftist. It’s pseudo-intellectual and elitist.

Moreover - as anti-imperialist as I am, I find that that the term ‘imperialist’ is used so much by Marxists/republicans on Twitter that it’s practically at this stage a byword for things they disagree with/don’t like.

So forgive me if I am sceptical of such charges against me.

“Why do you go on about this all the time?”

Because I see people saying things like “it’s Derry not Londonderry” or vice versa all the time, I see them making stupid jokes where that is the punchline all the time which never get any less unfunny-

I see them pretend they’ve never heard of a place called Londonderry in their life and don’t know where it is all the time, so if I’m seeing this all the time, how could I sit back and not challenge these attitudes, given I clearly think they’re wrong?

I think that addresses everything I have heard. Hope this clears things up