WWI – Page 2 – Paddy Duffy Collection

When Death Flies Swift

2025-06-292025-07-22Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“Sergeant 14/17063 Thomas George Wortley ‘D’ Company 14th Battalion Royal Irish Rifles (Young Citizen Volunteers). Killed in action 7th June 1917 Battle of Messines. Buried C.10 Spanbroekmolen British Cemetery.”

Wortley was born in Carrickfergus and lived in Belfast. He (and James Sharpe, also from Carrick) was killed on the first day of the battle at Messines (findagrave) and buried in a small cemetery of British soldiers, many from the 36th (Ulster) Division, in Spanbroekmolen on the Ypres Salient in Flanders (WP) – shown in the mural. He is remembered in Carrickfergus with a parade each year on the date of his death (carrickfergusrollofhonour).

The medals in the top left are Pip, Squeak, and Wilfred (that is, the 1914 Star, for service in France or Belgium, the War (service) medal, and the Inter Allied Victory medal) (Identify Medals). The ‘Dead Man’s Penny’ memorial plaque (WP) appears next to the gravestones.

The Larches, Carrickfergus, replacing a painted version.

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Their Amazing Attack

2025-06-222025-07-11Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

This is a printed version Wilfrid Spender’s report of the first day of the Battle Of The Somme, replacing a previously painted instance that was in the same style as the adjacent mural.

“‘I am not an Ulsterman but yesterday the First of July, as I followed their amazing attack, I felt that I would rather be an Ulsterman than anything else in the world. My pen cannot describe adequately the hundreds of heroic acts I witnessed, the Ulster Volunteer Force, from which the Division was made, has won a name that equals any in history. Their devotion deserves the gratitude of The British Empire’ – Captain Wilfrid [not “Wilfred”] Spender, The Somme 1916″

Spender’s words are superimposed upon JC Beadle’s Attack Of the 36th Division (see Over The Top).

Carlingford Street, east Belfast

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1st Shankill Somme Association

2025-06-182025-07-07Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“1st Shankill Somme Association [Fb] roll of honour. In memory of our esteemed past members. Lest we forget.” The Association celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary in February of this year (2025) and celebrated with a march from the leisure centre up to the garden of reflection next to the Shankill graveyard (Fb). The new retrospective board above shows members of the Association at trips to various WWI landmarks across the years.

This board replaces the James Craig board seen in Because He Loves What Is Behind Him.

Also included is an image of the roll of honour to the left of the main memorial, which now has some new names and is topped by a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II. For Joe Coggle see S Company, C Company.

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We Like Them Must Never Yield

2025-06-152025-06-15Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The image above shows a unified and wider view of the two pieces seen previously in Bloomfield House and In All Theatres Of Conflict: on the left, a board marking the centenary of the Ulster Volunteers’ ‘Larne Gun-Running’; on the right, a board commemorating the casualties from the 36th (Ulster) Division in WWI; above them both are small boards from the ‘Poppy Trail’ collection of deceased locals.

A close-up of the circular plaque above ‘Gunrunners’ can be seen in the Peter Moloney collection.

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At The Going Down Of The Sun

2025-06-052025-06-15Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The memorial garden in Barrington Gardens at long last appears to be finished. The house on the corner of Donegall Road was knocked down in 2012 or 2013 and work began converting the waste ground into a memorial to local Great War casualties in late November 2023. See this entry for images from both November 2023 and October 2024.

Since 2024, three pillars have been added below the main board, one each for the 10th (Irish) Division, 36th (Ulster) Division, and 16th (Irish Division) – for the service of the three divisions, see The Cost Of War, We Are The Dead, and (for the particular story of John Meeke and Willie Redmond) Comrades In Arms – and an iron bench to the 36th has been placed below the crests of the YCV, Inniskilling Fusiliers, Royal Irish Fusiliers, and the Royal Irish Rifles on the side-wall to the left.

Silhouetted graveside mourners appear on either side of the main board and in the gates to the garden

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William McFadzean

2025-04-182025-05-07Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“‘Rubicon’ – the family home of Pte. William F. McFadzean, Victoria Cross, who gave his life to save his comrades at Thiepval Wood on 1st July 1916 immediately prior to the Battle Of The Somme.” – McFadzean died when he threw himself on a fallen box of grenades.

For his heroism, Billy McFadzean (14th RIR) was awarded the VC (WP). The other VC winners pictured alongside McFadzean in the Cappagh Gardens mural (above and immediately below) are G[eoffrey St. George Shillington] Cather, R[obert] Quigg, and E[ric] N[orman] F[rankland] Bell.

The Family home was on Cregagh Road at Cregagh Park – there’s a picture of McFadzean standing outside the house at Royal Irish. The “blue plaque” is the most recent addition to the scene.

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Memory Without End

2025-04-112025-05-07Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

This is a 36th Division memorial board, with special attention to the men from the North Antrim regiment of the Ulster Volunteers (IWM), who in WWI were part of the 12th (Central Antrim) battalion of the Royal Irish Rifles and fought at the Somme (War Time Memories). The 36th Division in total suffered approximately 2,000 deaths and 3,000 casualties on the first day of the Somme offensive, July 1st, the Battle Of Albert (Royal Irish).

“1st July 1916. Somme soldiers killed, wounded, missing, 36th (Ulster) Division: 32,186.” “1-7-1916 7:30 a.m. remember”, “For these things do I weep; my eyes flow with tears – Lamentations 1 Vs. 16“, “Their name liveth for evermore”, “To the memory and sacrifice of the brave young men from North Antrim who gave their lives with countless others at the Somme and other battles during the Great War 1914-18, to restore peace in Europe. To them bravery was without limit, to us memory is without end.”

On the left-hand side is John McCrae’s poem ‘In Flanders Fields‘.

Castlecat Road, Dervock

Bushmills Remembers

2025-04-112025-04-25Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

153 men of the 12th Battalion Royal Irish Rifles (which included men from Ballymena and other Central Antrim Volunteers) died on the first day of the Battle Of The Somme, July 1st, 1916. The 12th’s Robert Quigg received the VC for his actions in the evening, rescuing wounded men from no-man’s-land. He is remembered by the statue and plaque (shown below) in Bushmills; he was from Ardihannon townland near the Giant’s Causeway and before the war commanded the Bushmills unit of the Ulster Volunteers (WP).

The boards are in the Dundareve estate, Bushmills, and the Quigg statue is on Main Street, just west of the estate. The boards both depict the War Memorial statue in the middle of the roundabout at Main Street and Dunluce Road.

Attack Of The Ulster Volunteers

2025-04-042025-04-19Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The uniforms of the graveside mourners are from WWI and the image on each side is JP Beadle’s Attack Of The Ulster Division (Royal Irish) at the Battle Of The Somme in 1916, but the names on the pillar (in the image immediately below) are from the modern UVF. Little information about any of those listed is available on-line, but ten of those listed were also on a plaque in Abbot Crescent, which was similarly in front of a 36th Division mural.

Castlereagh Way, Bowtown, Newtownards

Forever In Our Ranks

2025-03-082025-03-21Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

This entry updates 2023’s Leaders Of Unionism Against Home Rule, which shows portraits of Carson, Crawford, and Craig, and describes their efforts in 1912, with creation of the Ulster Volunteers and the importing of arms into Larne and Donaghadee.

To the original board have been added the two plaques (shown above and immediately below), one on either side:

On the right: “In memory of our absent friends. Forever remembered by 1st East Belfast Mens, Cosy, East End and Laganville Somme groups. ‘They live in our hearts forever'”

On the left: “Jim Holt – forever remembered – forever in our ranks [of the UVF]. West End Somme Association, Glasgow.” There is a large board to Holt in Beechfield Street.

Isthmus Street, east Belfast