There are new boards (and a black background) for the memorial plaque to Harris Boyle and Wesley Somerville in Portadown.
On the left: “The onus on future generations is to keep our country British, to defend our people from republican enemies and to remember with pride those who sacrificed their tomorrows for our today. UVF.”
And on the right, the words of A.E. Housman’s 1936 poem: “Here dead we lie because we did not choose/To live and shame the land from which we sprung.//Life to be sure, is nothing much to lose,/But young men think it is, and we were young.”
Despite the WWI references and imagery, the two people commemorated belong to the Troubles era. Boyle and Somerville were UDR soldiers and UVF volunteers. They were “killed in action” when the bomb they were planting on the minibus of the Miami Showband went off prematurely. Of the pair, only Somerville’s arm with its “UVF Portadown” tattoo remained identifiable. Three members of the band were also killed in the attack. (WP) The plaque goes back to (at least) 2008: Boyle & Somerville.
Princess Way/Gloucester Avenue, Portadown.
Click image to enlarge
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