The Claudy bombings inspired James Simmons to write one of the best-known poems of the 35-year conflict.

"An explosion too loud for your eardrums to bear, 
and young children squealing like pigs in the square, 
and all faces chalk-white and streaked with bright red, 
and the glass and the dust and the terrible dead."

On 1st of July 1916 the 10th Battalion, along with thousands of their comrades advanced on a 25 mile front across the no-mans land and up the Thiepval Ridge. On that one day, upwards of 20,000 men died. The greatest loss of life in a single day in the history of the British Army. After the event, Captain Wilfrid Spender of the Ulster Division's HQ staff, was quoted in the press as saying.... "I am not an Ulsterman but yesterday, the 1st. July, as I followed their amazing attack, I felt that I would rather be an Ulsterman than anything else in the world".