‘Every time I visit my home town, Derry, it is even more beautiful and has the most amazing and funny people’
Northern Irish actress Diona Doherty says her heart belongs to her home city of Londonderry, which she can’t look past as the best place to visit in Northern Ireland.
“Derry is perfect, everyone should visit Derry,” she says. “I just recently hosted the live broadcast of the Halloween celebrations, which have been voted the best in the world, so Derry is filled with cultural, artsy people who are so creative and love to perform. I think that is where I got it, it’s in most Derry people to have a bit of a performer in them.
“Every time I come back and visit Derry it just gets more and more beautiful. There is always something added. I remember the first time I came back and saw the Peace Bridge and thinking ‘wow’, this is absolutely gorgeous.
At night time it’s all lit up and looks amazing.
“Derry has some gorgeous old cobbled streets and hills that are j ust s t eeped in histor y and are gorgeous to look at. I just feel that it is a beaut i f ul place with the most amazing and funny people. Everyone in Derry is a comedian. So I would highly recommend Derry as a great spot.”
The Derry Girls and Soft Border actress says the Scottish city of Edinburgh also holds a very special place in her heart.
“One place in the world that I love is Edinburgh,” she says. “Edinburgh is where I met my husband while I was doing a fringe show one August. During that year I was there with a 13-piece sketch group, so none of us made any money. We put a show on in a ridiculously expensive venue and some nights we were just performing for two people in the whole audience for whom I’m pretty sure English wasn’t even their first language. So we had a pretty unsuccessful Edinburgh fringe run and the other 12 people in my sketch group were having a horrible time, but I met my husband Sean on the very first day that I was there.
“So I couldn’t have cared less about the show for the rest of the month. I was on this relationship bootcamp for a month, sneaking off to have Starbucks. On one of our first dates we went up to Arthur’s Seat in the middle of Edinburgh. We hiked up there and had a little barbeque at midnight overlooking the city.
“Fast forward four years later, Sean tricked me into thinking that he had a gig back in Edinburgh and that they were going to fly me over as his pretend manager to go to the gig. And we went back up to Arthur’s Seat and Sean proposed to me up there. So Edinburgh has a really, really special place in my heart and I think it’s the most gorgeous city.”