“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.
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.
Here are two butterfly-themed painted bus-shelters in Portadown, one in Corcrain (opposite the shops) and the other in Killicomaine (at the bonfire ground).
The more recent piece is by Visual Waste (web), in association with Armagh, Banbridge, And Craigavon Policing And Community Support Partnerships (Fb); the older piece is probably by him too. It dates back to 2018 and is sporting several enhancements from local youth.
This entry updates the images seen at the end of 2022 (in Loyalist Movilla). The UDA board with hooded gunmen (above) remains as before but the tarp below it is new (though perhaps relocated from the Glen estate). The other two tarps are also new: “Newtownards supports British Armed Forces – They served us all” with the emblems of the Paratroop Regiment, the SAS, the RIR and the UDR, and, “North Down First Flute [Fb], LOL 111 Newtownards – Ulster’s chosen few”.
This is a series of five boards commemorating and celebrating the recent transition in UK royalty from Elizabeth to Charles. Three panels chronicle the life of Elizabeth Windsor beginning (above) with her service during the Second World War in the Auxiliary Territorial Service and coronation in 1953. In the final panel, Charles is shown in a coronation photograph (from 2022) and celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Parachute Regiment in 1990 (youtube).
This new mural in Carrickfergus draws on local connections to literary figures Louis MacNeice and Jonathan Swift, as well as the more distantly located CS Lewis.
The MacNeices moved from Belfast to Carrickfergus in 1909 when Freddie (later Louis) was an infant and he grew up in the town until he was sent to Sherbourne Prep in Dorset, England, in 1917. In the mural, a book is opened to the page of his poem Carrickfergus, which was written in 1937 and describes the town in geological, historical, industrial, and sectarian terms, and more real than the “puppet world” of Sherbourne.
Jonathan Swift was briefly (1694-1696) a Church Of Ireland cleric in Kilroot, near Carrickfergus. In the mural, Carrick-A-Rede rope-bridge is shown strung between the knees of Gulliver as he wakes in Lilliput. The Swift quote on the extreme (viewer’s) right is from Polite Conversation (p. 154): Miss Notable is toasted by both Mr Neverout – “May you live a thousand years”; “Pray, Sir, don’t stint me”, she replies – and Colonel Atwit – “May you live every day of your life”.
Lewisian figures include Aslan the lion and Reepicheep the mouse. The final (right-most) figures would seem to be Katniss and Peeta from The Hunger Games.
Painted by DMC on North Road, Carrickfergus, at the entrance to the Castlemara estate, as a complement and competitor to the PUL boards.
“Titanic Gentlemen’s Club [Fb], every Wednesday 6pm – 8pm, Connswater Community Centre. Make mental health great again. Every man has an engine room – you don’t have to maintain it alone. Let’s break the silence and support men’s mental health.”
The green ribbon is the symbol of the campaign to release political prisoners, and “Make ___ great again” is the form of the slogan of the MAGA movement in the United States.
The board was officially launched July 9th (Fb) in Severn Street, east Belfast.
“”BreaktheStigma” for the men who rise, together: We are the voices once held back,/Taught to smile through every crack./But now we speak, we face the fight,/Together stepping into the light.//This is Break the Stigma, strong and true,/A brotherhood of me and you./Men alike, from every road,/Each carrying a silent load.//No shame in tears, no guilt in pain,/No more hiding hurt in vain./We rise as one, we make it known-/You don’t have to walk alone.//We’re not defined by past or scar,/By what we’ve lost or who we are./We’re here to talk, to heal, to grow,/To lift each other from below.//So here we stand, hearts open wide,/With honesty we will not hide./For every man who needs a sign-/Break the Stigma holds the line.”
The seventh anniversary of the murder of Ian Ogle is approaching: “Big O” was killed on the evening of January 27th, 2019. Five people received sentences in March 2025, having been found guilty of murder – see In Memory Of Ian Ogle.
Also included is a small memorial plaque to British forces, which seems to have been generated by AI.
These flags – one to the Ulster YCV (14th RIR) and two to the Blues And Royals flute band, Sydenham (Fb) – are on the fence below the Northern Ireland Centenary board in Mersey Street, at the junction of Parkgate Drive in east Belfast.