“Welcome to Craigyhill, home of the world’s biggest bonfire.”
The board in the image below was mounted circa 2019 (replacing the controversial Craigyhill Provost Team board that showed a hooded gunman with a pistol). The community was already claiming that its annual bonfire was “Northern Ireland’s biggest”.
But the claim was expanded to the entire world with 2022’s bonfire, which was measured at 202.3 feet (see March 2023’s Welcome To Craigyhill). The builders took a break with the (July) 2023 bonfire but the 2024 pyre (not “2023”, as in the image above) was measured at 205 feet, 2.69 inches (Belfast Live).
“Millbrook remembers – they gave their all for our freedom.” Here is a new installation in the Millbrook area of/just outside Larne, celebrating and commemorating the sacrifice of locals who lost their lives while serving the British forces during the World Wars.
The Great War 1914-1918: “Be proud of the lads of Millbrook, who at the bugle call/put on the Country’s armour and rushed to duty’s call They have gone to beat the Kaiser, we are sure they will succeed,/To drive him out of Flanders, And Belgium shall be freed! Their names shall live in history, Their names we will adore,/And Ulster shall be proud of them, when they return once more.”
On the left are three medals: Pip, Squeak, and Wilfred (that is, the 1914 Star, for service in France or Belgium, the War (service) medal, and the Inter Allied Victory medal) (Identify Medals), with the ‘Dead Man’s Penny’ on the right.
The names on the headstone between the two World War panels are [from WWI] John Blair, David Linn Ritchie, Robert Erskine, Wesley Campbell, James Steele, Samuel McKay, Robert McFall, Thomas Kirkpatrick, Samuel George Mathers, Charles McNally, William John Kirkpatrick, Daniel McMichael, [from WWII] Cyril Cecil Whitley, William Magee. “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you – Deuteronomy 31:6”
Second World War 1939-1945: “Here inscribed the names of friends we knew, Young men with whom we often flew Scrambled to many angels high, They knew that they or friends might die Behind each name a story lies, of bravery in summer skies; Though many brave unwritten tales, were simply told in vapour trails Many now lie in sacred graves, and many rest beneath the waves Outnumbered every day they flew, Remembered here as just ‘The Few'”
The medals on the right are the Burma Star, Defence Medal, and the War Medal, with the RAF brass cap badge on the left.
Along the main road in Drumahoe Gardens, Millbrook, Larne.
Latharna House – the last remaining of three tower-blocks in Larne – is still standing, despite plans to demolish it in 2022 (Belfast Live) and in 2024 (NI World) and in 2025 (NI World). While awaiting its ultimate demise, it serves as a canvas for writers (including AKSEL and ANCO) and an advertising hoarding for the recent Hit The Coast festival – full gallery here.
“Mr George Walker, Minister of Dungannon and Gouernour of London Derrie in Ireland when besieged in 1689.” Walker evacuated from Dungannon after Lundy’s troops pulled out and became joint governor of Derry after Lundy’s authority collapsed, first with Henry Baker and later with John Mitchelburne.
Walker put himself at the centre of his own “True Account Of The Siege Of London-Derry” (which can be read at archive.org) and drew criticism for minimising the role of Presbyterians (Walker was Anglican/CoI).
After the siege, Walker went on a victory tour of Scotland and England; while in London, he argued against a Derry trial for Lundy, on the ground that Lundy still had support there. He returned to Ireland in time to greet William III in June 1690 when William travelled from Carrickfergus to Belfast (see June 14th, 1690) and he went south with William to the Boyne, where he was shot and killed. (DIB | DIB | WP)
“The Walker Club was formed in 1844 in Londonderry to perpetuate the memory of siege governor, Rev. George Walker, who was a[n] inspirational great clergyman and soldier. He fought with King William at the Battle of the Boyne, where he was killed on 1st July 1690.”
The image of Walker is a line-engraving by John Savage, viewable at Sinclair Genealogy. “Life, truth, victory” is a translation of Londonderry’s Latin motto “Vita, veritas, victoria”.
These new boards are at the Rangers Supporters’ Club (Fb) in Boyne Square/Greenland, Larne.
This is a series of ten boards in Craigyhill, Larne about WWII. (It replaces a set of twelve UDA boards – see The Loyalist Executioner.)
From left to right (top to bottom) their subjects are: the Ulster Defence Volunteers/Ulster Home Guard, formed from the B Specials; Paddy the pigeon; submarine HMS Thrasher (using an image from the Seosamh Mac Coılle collection); HMS Larne, a minesweeper built in Renfrew, Scotland; the port of Larne through which passed “over 5 million people and Allied forces”; Kilwaughter Castle, a training ground for UK and American troops; the royal visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in June 1942; James Stuart Steele of Ballycarry, who served in both WWI and WWII; the Larne Spitfire, one of seventeen spitfires funded by a Belfast Telegraph fund-raising drive (Wartime NI | see also the Ballymena spitfire in Per Ardua Ad Astra); local casualties of WWII – “In remembrance of those from town of Larne that paid the supreme sacrifice during the Second World War”.
The pillars under the Harbour Highway at Bridge Street were repainted on July 28th in a jam called “Hit The Coast”. The wall along the back of the space was also painted, along with the large piece above on the back wall of Ruby’s, to give approximately 37 total pieces. Where known, the artist(s) is given in the caption.
These images were taken on August 2nd, after Wee Nuls repaired several pieces that were vandalised soon after painting (BelTel).
The Millbrook arch has three panels: “36th (Ulster) Division, Battle Of The Somme, 7:30 am 1st July 1916”; the Clyde Valley (Mountjoy II) “The SS Clyde Valley achieved notoriety for its role in the Larne gun-running operation 24th-25th April 1914”; “Sir Edward Carson signing the Ulster Covenant, Belfast City Hall 28th September 1912”.
Paddy Duffy Collection 