Bushmills Remembers

153 men of the 12th Battalion Royal Irish Rifles (which included men from Ballymena and other Central Antrim Volunteers) died on the first day of the Battle Of The Somme, July 1st, 1916. The 12th’s Robert Quigg received the VC for his actions in the evening, rescuing wounded men from no-man’s-land. He is remembered by the statue and plaque (shown below) in Bushmills; he was from Ardihannon townland near the Giant’s Causeway and before the war commanded the Bushmills unit of the Ulster Volunteers (WP).

The boards are in the Dundareve estate, Bushmills, and the Quigg statue is on Main Street, just west of the estate. The boards both depict the War Memorial statue in the middle of the roundabout at Main Street and Dunluce Road.