Armagh

McGerrigan – Hughes 50th

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Jake McGerrigan and Tony Hughes of the OIRA were both shot and killed by British forces in the Windmill Hill area of Armagh in a 48-hour period spanning April 7th and 9th, 1973. (Lost Lives incorrectly gives March 7th for McGerrigan.) The board shown above was mounted in Navan Street for the 40th anniversary of their deaths, in 2013, and the lower date has now been updated for the 50th anniversary.

The larger portraits on either side are of McGerrigan and Hughes; between them are (left) Peadar McElvanna, Roddy Carroll, Gerard Mallon, Martin Corrigan, (middle) Peter Corrigan, (right) Tony McClelland, Seamus Grew, Sean McIlvanna [McIlvenna], Dessie Grew.

There is an individual plaque to Hughes (shown immediately below) at the spot where he was shot and a stone (shown below; for text see McGerrigan – Hughes) to both of them in the same alley; there is also a stone (not shown) to McGerrigan in Windmill Avenue. (Video of Jake McGerrigan’s funeral.)

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Armagh True Blues

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These two boards from the Armagh True Blues flute band (Fb) in Barrack Hill commemorate the Ulster Volunteers of 1912 who went on to join the 9th (County Armagh) battalion of the Royal Irish Fusiliers (Wartime Memories).

The “1st batt” emblem (in the third image) applies to both the Ulster Volunteers of the Home-Rule era and the Troubles-era Mid-Ulster UVF.

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Ní Amháın Saor Ach Gaelach Chomh Maıth

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Quotations from Pádraıg Mac Pıaraıs [Patrick Pearse] and Séamus Ó Conghaıle [James Connolly] are super-imposed upon an Irish-language version of the 1916 Proclamation. From Mac Pıaraıs: Ní [h]amháın saor ach Gaelach chomh maıth; ní [h]amháın Gaelach ach saor chomh maıth [not merely free but Gaelic too; not merely Gaelic but free too]; from Ó Conghaıle: “The cause of labour is the cause of Ireland, the cause of Ireland is the cause of labour’ (from ‘The Irish Flag’ 1916).

The portraits might well be by, or based on, prints by Jim Fitzpatrick (Revolutionaries).

Dalton Park/Irish Street, Armagh

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The Dead Generations

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In the apex of the gable are the seven signatories to the 1916 Proclamation — all of whom were executed after the rising — and to the left and right of the text of the Proclamation are IRA dead from 1973 to 1990.

Left, top to bottom: Jake McGerrigan, Peadar McElvanna, Peter Corrigan, Roddy Carroll, Sean McIlvanna [McIlvenna], and Dessie Grew.

Right: Tony Hughes, Tony McClelland, Seamus Grew, Martin Corrigan, and Gerard Mallon.

See also: 50th Anniversary board to McGerrigan and Hughes.

Culdee Terrace, Armagh

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800 Years Of Irish Resistance

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There is a memorial garden to the history of Irish resistance at the entrance to the Athletic Grounds in Armagh. From left to right, the images presented here show:

“More than 800 years of Irish resistence” – a sword for the Norman invasion under Strongbow, a pike for the 1798 and 1803 rebellions, a bolt-action rifle for the Easter Rising of 1916, and an assault rifle for the Troubles;

Cumann Na mBan, Mairéad Farrell and republican women who made “the supreme sacrifice”;

The Proclamation, Provisional IRA and Na Fianna;

The dying Cú Chulainn and a plaque “in proud and loving memory of all republican volunteers, ex-POWs and the unsung heroes from this area who fought, suffered and died in the cause of Ireland’s freedom, with a quote from James Connolly: ‘If you strike at, imprison or kill us, out of prisons or graves will still evoke a spirit that will thwart you and perhaps raise a force that will destroy you! We defy you England! Do your worst!”;

“Remember Ireland’s hunger strikers – 22 men” – the ten 1981 hunger strikers and Thomas Ashe, Terence MacSwiney, Michael Fitzgerald, Joe Murphy, Joseph Whitty, Andy O’Sullivan, Denny Barry, Tony D’Arcy, Jack McNeela, Seán McCaughey, Michael Gaughan, Frank Stagg;

A stone “in loving memory of men, women and children murdered by British forces in Ireland.”

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