PUL – Page 23 – Paddy Duffy Collection

Continuing Conflicts

2024-12-012025-06-20Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The war memorial garden in City Way (Sandy Row) commemorates those from the Great War, World War II, and “Continuing Conflicts” which includes the “Troubles”. There is also a fourth, smaller, stone, with John Maxwell Edmonds’s memorial epitaph.

“The Great War 1914-1918: In memory of the fallen”, with John McCrae’s poem ‘In Flanders Fields‘.
“Second World War 1939-1945: Freedom is the sure possession of those have the courage to defend it. Their ideal is our legacy. Their sacrifice is our inspiration.”
“Continuing Conflicts: We remember those who have given their lives. The wounded and those who serve in continued conflicts around the world.”

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The Battles Of Britain

2024-11-282025-02-02Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

These wreaths are mounted next to the Battle Of Britain board on Beverley Street (Band Of Brothers) which celebrates and commemorates the Polish pilots in the RAF’s 303 Squadron during WWII.

The first and third of these three wreaths – which were new at the end of 2024 – combine WWI and WWII. In the first, we see poppies and the familiar image of a WWI soldier standing by a graveside, along with an image of a WWII fighter-plane (probably a Spitfire or Hurricane) flying over a crowd of soldiers. The third combines the red-and-white of Poland with a poppy. (See also the wreath from 2018, which placed Polish writing and imagery within a wreath of poppies.)

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1st July 1916

2024-11-262025-01-04Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

This is a mural with a twenty-year history, in Watson Street, Portadown.

The mural began with the single panel on the left (2004 D01505) which shows a red hand on top of a St Andrew’s Saltire. Three panels were then added: and Ulster Banner, a Union Flag, and a red hand, along with the title “Battle Of [The] Somme, 1st July 1916” (see C01914 from 2010), though the connection to the Somme is unclear. The whole thing was repainted without the red hand in the fourth panel (perhaps c. 2012 – Street View and M10297 from 2013).

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Here Dead We Lie

2024-11-262025-01-02Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

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.

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Portadown Defenders Flute Band

2024-11-262025-01-01Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“Portadown Defenders flute band formed in Levaghery Orange Hall, Killycomain, 23rd Sept 1971. From strength to strength, the band remains an institution ingrained in history, that has stood for over 50 years. Simply the best.”

Portadown Defenders flute band (Fb) unveiled this new installation on April 6th (Fb). The band also has a board in Union Street. The the lion and the unicorn (above) are from the UK coat of arms

Princess Way/Gloucester Street, Portadown

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Monkstown YCV

2024-11-242024-12-11Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

This entry updates Four Lads Had A Dream, which showed seven boards on the low wall opposite the Monkstown social club. Three more boards have been added to the right-hand end of the wall. One (above) has a gallery of photographs from the history of the Monkstown YCV flute band (Fb) “established 1974”, the second gives the lyrics to a song by Jim English, which was written for the band’s “50th anniversary battlefield tour” (Fb), photos from which are shown in the third panel.

“So now we’ll toast to those four young men from back in ’74/Did they think their dreams would still live on for 50 years and more/So raise a glass to those four young men and the dream they had made/To name the band in memory of the YCV brigade.”

Cloyne Crescent, Monkstown, Newtownabbey

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Old Comrades

2024-11-202025-01-02Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Here is a gallery of images of the boards and flags on the fencing around “Buck’s Shed” in Rathfern, Newtownabbey. The usual themes are represented: the 36th Division and WWI (Mountainview Battlefields Association Fb), the British military, Rangers FC, and George Best.

The Present Conflict

2024-11-202024-12-11Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

This is a new UDA board in Monkstown, Newtownabbey. At the top we see the emblems of “Loyalist Prisoners’ Aid” and “Ulster Defence Union” alongside the familiar UYM and UFF emblems. For the UDU, see the entry on one its earliest appearances, in a 2009 mural in the lower Shankill. Loyalist Prisoners’ Aid is a fundraising album of UDA songs (now freely available at SoNIC). (Also seen: an LPA flag flying in Newtownards in 2018.)

The photograph at the bottom (close-up below) shows the UDA marching in 1972 in North Street, Belfast city centre. (Of the buildings on the left, only the brick building housing “Castle jewellers” remains standing – Street View.) The original photograph can be seen at Alamy.

“This memorial is dedicated to the memory of the officers and members of our organisation who were murdered by the enemies of Ulster and to those who paid the supreme sacrifice whilst on active service during the present conflict. Quis separabit.” Four of the 1st battalion dead are named in the mural across Devenish Drive – see Monkstown UDA.

Ards Park, Monkstown, Newtownabbey. For the previous mural in this spot, see Murals Irlande Du Nord.

Hurricane Higgins

2024-11-172024-12-11Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“Alex “Hurricane” Higgins – World champion 1972/1982 – 18th March 1949 – 24th July 2010″. Higgins grew up in 16 Abingdon Street (Lennon-Wylie) and played snooker at the Jam Pot club further west on Donegall Road (Belfast Forum).

This new mural at the end of what is now Abingdon Drive is by Visual Waste (web) – replacing the older black-and-grey mural.

North Belfast Friends Of The Somme

2024-11-172024-12-04Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The rosette at the centre of the poppy wreath shows the UK armed services badge (with the crown overlaid by the Ulster Banner) surrounded by a verse from Binyon’s ‘For The Fallen’ and “Tiger’s Bay – York Street – Sailortown loyal”. That group’s Facebook page is private and no home-page seems to be available for ‘North Belfast Friends Of The Somme’.

North Queen Street, Tiger’s Bay, Belfast, at the old Lewis Street.