Stephen King fans anticipate ‘Welcome to Derry’ as fictional town part inspired by Maiden City shines again

Bill Skarsgård will reprise his role as ‘Pennywise’, the clown-cum-malevolent entity, in the prequel to IT, which will be directed by acclaimed Argentinian film-maker Andy Muschietti.

Little has been trailed about the series other than that it is set before the events of Stephen King’s chilling 1986 novel which, like much of the maestro’s work, is set in the fictional town of Derry in Maine in the United States.

Is there any connection with Derry in Ireland?

Derry, is reputedly a fictionalised version of Bangor, Maine, where King has a home.

But George Beahm’s 1989 book ‘The Stephen King Companion’ offers the following tantalising titbit:

“Bangor became Derry. There is a Bangor in Ireland, located in the county of Derry, so I changed the name of the fictional town to Derry. There is a one-to-one correlation between Bangor and Derry.

"It’s a place that I keep coming back to, even as recently as the novel Insomnia.”

There is, of course, no Bangor in County Derry but there is the seaside resort of Castlerock 30 miles east of Derry city.

And ‘Castle Rock’ is another fictionalised locale that recurs in King’s fiction.

“Castle Rock is a lot more fictionalised than Derry. Derry is Bangor,” King attests, quoted by Beahm.

We’ll leave the bit about Bangor being located in Derry as it is. But Derry/Bangor has been the stalking ground for characters in dozens of King’s novels, short stories and screen adaptations.

These have included ‘The Bird and the Album’ (1981), The Running Man (1982), The Body (1982), IT (1986), Insomnia (1994), Bag of Bones (1998), ‘The Road Virus Heads North’ (1999), Dreamcatcher (2001), ‘Fair Extension’ (2010) and11/22/63 (2011).

Derry is mentioned in Pet Sematary (1983), The Tommyknockers (1987), Misery (1987) and Under the Dome (2009).

Next year Derry/Bangor gets another run out with ‘Welcome to Derry’ whose director Muschietti, incidentally, directed our own ‘Derry Girl’ Saoirse-Monica Jackson as ‘Patty Spivot’ in 2023’s The Flash, where she starred alongside Michael Keaton and Maribel Verdú.

Derry may not actually exist in Maine but there is a town of that name elsewhere in New England.

Around 200 miles south west of Bangor, lie the neighbouring towns of Derry and Londonderry, New Hampshire.

Londonderry, about 50 miles north of Boston, was founded by Magilligan-native Rev. James McGregor, a veteran of the Siege of Derry, who was the pastor of a small Presbyterian church in Aghadowey. Rev. McGregor was the great, great, great, great-grandfather of former US Secretary of State and Presidential candidate John Kerry.

An Irish speaker, he was given the privilege of preaching in Irish by a synod in 1710 but due to discrimination against Presbyterians took his congregation to Boston in 1718.

They founded a colony in Nutfield. In 1722 it was incorporated as Londonderry and remains so today.

In 1827, an eastern section, was established as Derry. The sister towns now sit side-by-side in this idyllic corner of New England.

Whether Derry, New Hampshire, figured in Stephen King’s imagination is another thing but he will certainly know it. It’s the one-time home of poet Robert Frost and birthplace of spaceman and moonwalker Alan Shephard.

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