PUL – Page 7 – Paddy Duffy Collection

The Uncrowned King Of Ulster

2026-06-252026-10-28Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Text above: “Sir Edward Carson 1854 – 1935 “Uncrowned King of Ulster” Founding member and leader of the Ulster Volunteers. Carson led Ulster Unionist resistance to the British Government’s attempts to introduce Home Rule for the whole of Ireland.”

The epithet “uncrowned King” seems to be generally used of Carson and not attributable to any one source. Here is a September 1912 newspaper article that calls Carson the “uncrowned King of the North” and relays criticisms of a Carson reception in Portadown as “a parody upon a royal reception” and “an insult to the King”. A May 1914 review of (the book) The Reign Of Edward Carson refers to “King Carson”. (Here is a postcard depicting Carson as a king upon a throne – Postcards Ireland.)

The phrase is an echo of and response to the phrase “uncrowned king of Ireland”, which was used of both O’Connell and Parnell. Here is an 1847 article describing both O’Connell and the Napoleonic Governor-General of Algeria (WP) as “uncrowned monarch[s]”. According to WP, the epithet was first applied to Parnell in 1880, because he was so popular during a tour of the United States and Canada. At the end of James Joyce’s story ‘Ivy Day In The Committee Room’ a character recites a poem about Parnell, beginning “He is dead. Our uncrowned king is dead” (archive.com).

The wording “the British government’s attempts to introduce Home Rule” is more forthright than we are used to. Typically the resistance is simply to “Home Rule”. This wording makes clear that the Ulster Volunteers were a private militia preparing for the possibility of fighting the regular British Army and Navy. By being so explicit, this wording suggests that we are currently living through a time in which loyalists consider the “British government” to be insufficiently British, just as was the case in 1912.

Text below: “Sir Edward Carson being escorted by members of the Ulster Special Service Force on the Newtownards Road passing the Belvoir Bar in the company of Captain James Craig and the Officer Commanding of the Ulster Volunteer Force Sir George Richardson.”

According to a Regimental Band Fb post, “Sir Edward Carson was speaking at the Reform Club in Royal Avenue. There was an opinion that the British Government were going to try and arrest him so he was escorted to the safety of Craigavon House [shown on the right of the mural]. This photo was taken on the 20th March, 1914.” This October 1913 article, in addition to calling Carson “Ulster’s Uncrowned King”, notes that he travelled with a detective and carried a revolver.

By Dee Craig (Fb), presumably, replacing his hooded gunmen mural The Right To Defend Yourself, on the Newtownards Road at (the former) Bright Street.

The other two murals (visible in the wide shot) are We Are The Pilgrims and Nearer My God To Thee. The UVF board next to the taxi office was previously across the street.

April 6th, 2026:

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Sydenham UVF

2026-06-222026-09-25Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

These UVF boards can be found in Inverary Street, Gardens, and Drive, in the Sydenham area of east Belfast. They mix a memorial with symbols of an active organisation: an emblem (of the YCV) and a hooded gunman above the slogan “armed and ready”.

The memorial presents photographic portraits of four UVF members – Robert “Squeak” Seymour (east Belfast commander, shot dead by the PIRA in 1988), Robert Bennett (killed by the British Army during a riot in 1973), and Joe Long and James Cordner (killed in a premature explosion in 1977). “At Ulster’s call, they gave their all, a different war, on a different day, a bloody sacrifice, was the price to pay.”

The same quartet are commemorated in a mural (and a plaque) in Ballymacarrett.

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McMaster Street Remembers

2026-06-212026-08-28Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

McMaster and Lendrick streets – part of a conservation site of Victorian terraced houses (Dept For Communities) – were the epicentre of last week’s anti-immigration riots, with cars and houses in the street set ablaze and families evacuated to safety by the security forces (BBC video).

Also in the street: An Act Of Betrayal (about the Sea Border) and (before that, c. 2010) Young Newtown UDA.

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Attack Of The Ulster Division

2026-06-182026-06-26Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“Lest we forget.” JP Beadle’s painting “Battle Of The Somme: Attack Of The Ulster Division” shows soldiers of the 36th Division bravely going to their death on July 1st, 1916. The original painting hangs in Belfast City Hall (militaryprints.com). In the board shown here, a foreground of poppies has been added, along with the Ulster Tower in Thiepval, France, on the right.

Grange Drive, Ballyclare

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The Loyal 36th

2026-06-182026-10-26Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“To the memory of the loyal 36th”. The emblem of the 36th (Ulster) Division – shown in close-up above – is a modern one, perhaps from the 2000s. The 36th’s emblem in WWI was a simple red (left) hand, while this one involves a crest combining a Union Flag, Maid Of Erin harp (emblem of the Royal Irish Rifles), and a red (right) hand on a field of nine shamrocks, below a crown and flanked with UVF flags. These are flags of the modern UVF; according to Sam’s Flags, the flags of the Ulster Volunteers (1913-1914) looked like regimental flags.

Grange Drive, Ballyclare, replacing We Band Of Brothers

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Nature Does Not Hurry

2026-06-172026-06-25Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

A “living mural” on and around the wall around the Ark Housing (web) in Millisle, Co Down, was announced in the summer of 2025 (Newtownards Chronicle), with art by Blaze FX (ig) to be complemented by planters. By March, 2026, only background colours and various line-drawings of wildlife had been completed – see the images towards the bottom of the page – but now the whole the colours and details have been added.

With support from the Millisle And District Community Association (Fb) and Ulster Wildlife (Fb).

Ballymacruise Drive, Millisle

March 20th, 2026:

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Linfield’s Glorious Dead

2026-06-142026-08-28Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“1st south Belfast LSC [Fb] remembers. Lest we forget.” “To the glory of God and in honourable memory of the former players from Linfield Football Club who laid down the glory of their youth upon the altar of freedom during the Great War of 1914 – 1918.

The main part of this new board in the Village shows the Linfield memorial at Bertrancourt, France. The memorial was unveiled in 2022 (BBC). The BBC article explains the reference to “Rifleman Walker” in the poem by Johnny Jamison at the centre of the memorial: Walker had been a Linfield player before joining the Royal Irish Rifles and dying on May 6th, 1916. Jamison recites his poem in this Fb video. In the background is the familiar Ulster Tower.

Broadway, the Village, south Belfast. For the small boards above, see Village Team On Tour and I Would Rather Be An Ulsterman.

Pride Of Lord Street

2026-06-142026-06-18Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The association of lions with the English monarchy goes back to Henry II and his sons Richard (“the lionheart”) and John (WP). Why they were represented by lions is unclear; it perhaps stems from the prominence of lions in the Bible and the Lion Of Judah from Genesis 49:9.

These lions, somehow carrying Union Flags, are in Lord Street at Lord Street Mews, east Belfast

Times Bar

2026-06-062026-08-28Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

A memorial service was held at the Times Bar on Friday (June 5th) (News Letter) to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the attack on the Times Bar in 1976, in which Edward McMurray and Robert Groves were killed by a republican bomb. (An image of the bombed bar can be found on Xitter.)

Three plaques were added to the memorial garden where the service took place, to William Haddock, James Smyth, and William Flynn. (Compare to 2019.)

As the images from May 10th, below, show, a painted mural was originally planned for the spot.

May 10th:

For King And Empire

2026-06-052026-06-20Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The colours of the third (Carrickfergus) battalion of the Central Antrim regiment of the Ulster Volunteers can be seen at Sam’s Flags. They are very similar to the piece shown above, except for the addition of the emblem in the top right corner (close-up immediately below) which shows the Ulster Volunteers drilling with a machine-gun mounted in a car, preparing to resist Home Rule – see this 1988 mural and the photograph in this History Ireland article. (See also UVF Motor Car Corps.) In the Royal Irish Rifles of WWI, however, Central Antrim became the 12th battalion (War Time Memories Project).

Next to the Central Antrim flag is a board marking the “110th anniversary of the Battle Of The Somme 1 July 1916 – 1 July 2026. Honouring their courage, remembering their sacrifice. Lest we forget.”

Hawthorn Avenue/Sandes Court, Sunnylands, Carrickfergus, replacing Remembering Our Fallen.