Portadown/Craigavon – Paddy Duffy Collection

Portadown True Blues

2026-09-112026-09-22Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

This is a new board featuring the Portadown True Blues flute band (Fb). The white lines around the second flag from the left in the image above are scratches caused to the board within days of its unveiling on June 20th.

The plaque on the right names “Roger Love, Mark Elliott, Richard Craven, Blake McCaughey”. McCaughey is featured in the board leading the parade in a wheelchair; he suffered from a genetic disorder (BBC) and died in January (2026) at age 18 (NI World).

Union Street, Edgarstown, Portadown

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Copyright © 2026 Paddy Duffy
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We Can Turn This Place Around

2026-09-112026-09-27Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Here is a small gallery of images from the Redmanville and Corcrain estates in Portadown, specifically Westland Road and the bonfire site. To the trio of boards at the site (seen previously in January, 2026) has been added the board shown above: “In loving memory – from the fathers that shaped it to the son’s [sic] who continue it. It’s our year, every year.” The bonfire, which is lit on the 10th (of July) has its own Facebook page.

Elsewhere in the estates: An elderly woman is drawn spraying graffiti that reads “They’re ashamed of our youth … and that’s the truth” along with “Never give up, never back down. We can turn this place around!”, and an anti-immigrant placard, the same as the one recorded in January.

Westland Road, Corcrain/Redmanville, Portadown

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Copyright © 2026 Paddy Duffy
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Loyalist Brownstown

2026-09-112026-09-19Extramural Activity1 Comment

“Portadown True Blues flute band, est. 1968 [Fb].” This is a trio of boards at the top of the Brownstown estate, on the fence overlooking the “Northway” that separates Brownstown from Edgarstown. The flute band draws from both estates and has murals in both.

Both the main panel (immediately below) and the one to the left features WWI soldiers and the 36th Division – the band is associated with the Mid-Ulster brigade UVF (see the old Edgarstown mural in the Peter Moloney Collection).

Atkinson Avenue/Ranfurley Road, Brownstown, Portadown

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Copyright © 2026 Paddy Duffy
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Portadown District

2026-09-112026-09-20Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

On the near side of this long mural of Portadown landmarks and history is the collarette of “LOL No. 1” and a silhouette of King William III on his horse. The Orange Order’s first district lodge was formed in 1796 in Portadown (LOLNo1), the same year that the first parades took place on the Twelfth, in Portadown, Lurgan, and Warrenpoint. (The first individual lodge was founded in Dyan, Co Tyrone. (Lurgan Ancestry))

Also included in the mural is the “Portadown” spitfire – one of 17 spitfires purchased by a Belfast Telegraph fund-raising drive. See also the mural of the “Ballymena” spitfire.

The grand building on the far left is the former Portadown Railway station, in Watson Street – see FamilyPedia for a photograph.

Atkinson Avenue/Ranfurley Road, Brownstown, Portadown, recently joined by three True Blues flute band boards.

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Copyright © 2026 Paddy Duffy
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To Keep Our Country British

2026-01-022026-08-28Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

This entry updates 2024’s Here Dead We Lie – the plaque to Boyle and Somerville remains as before (it was originally mounted in 2005) but all three of the boards have been updated. The two on the extremes have the same content as before, while the central board marks the “50th anniversary” of the death of “Volunteer Harris Boyle”, “eternally remembered by the officers and volunteers of Mid-Ulster UVF”. Both Boyle and Somerville were members of both the UDR and UVF; they were “killed in action” when the bomb they were planting on the minibus of the Miami Showband went off prematurely. A parade in Boye’s memory took place in Portadown (BBC). Surviving Showband members and their sympathisers also marked the anniversary – on July 31st, 2025 – with a service at the spot of the attack (BBC).

The boards are at the junction of Gloucester Avenue and Princess Way in Portadown – Boyle was from the Killicomaine estate; Somerville is individually commemorated in Moygashel.

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Copyright © 2026 Paddy Duffy
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Small Community, Big Heart

2026-01-022026-01-10Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

This is a kids/community/mental-health mural on the sub-station in Edgarstown. The art was painted by young people from the area, organised by Edgarstown Residents’ Association in the summer of 2024 (Fb).

For more images of the Rangers mural, see Red Hand, Red Lion from 2024.

Also included is a pair of boards of the fence around Hayes Park. For close-ups (of an identical board a stone’s throw away), see In Deo Speramus.

Union Street, Edgarstown, Portadown

Every Night All The Men Would Come Around

2026-01-022026-02-05Extramural Activity1 Comment

“The loyalist community will protect its residents and homes from: thieves, paedophiles, unwanted graffiti & domestic abusers.” The list of crimes makes no reference to denomination or ethnicity, but “loyalist” and the combined Union Flag (which is incorrectly rendered) and Ulster Banner suggest that the threat comes from those who identify insufficiently with the UK.

Possible background: BBC | LCR (Fb) | BBC

Corcrain Drive, Portadown

End British Internment Of Irish Citizens

2026-01-022026-02-05Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

This board with portraits of Marian Price and Martin Corey goes back to 2013 (and perhaps earlier than that). It remains on display in the Obins Street area of Portadown, even though Price was released in 2013 and Corey in January 2014.

Parkside, Portadown

Ulster Says No!

2026-01-022026-02-10Extramural Activity1 Comment

This is the scene at the Corcrain-Redmanville bonfire (Fb) site, along Drumilly Green, where the hut has been moved to the south side of the Green, to join the Union Flag and Ulster Banner.

The 2025 bonfire topped 100 feet in height (News Letter); collecting for the 2026 pyre has yet to begin.

Westland Road, Portadown