“Forever in our heart: HM Queen Elizabeth II, April 21, 1926 – September 8, 2022” and “Greenisland celebrates King Charles III, coronation 6th May, 2023.” Charles assumed (“acceded to”) the UK throne immediately upon the death of Elizabeth in September, in order to maintain the monarchy’s unbroken rule; it was not announced until the morning of the 10th (WP) and the coronation ceremony took place eight months later.
Privates Fred Starrett and James Cummings died in an IRA bombing on Belfast’s Royal Avenue on February 24th, 1988, two of the 197 UDR soldiers who died violently during the twenty-two year life-span of the regiment (UDR Association). The pair are also remembered in a UDR display in Thorndyke Street.
The poem on the right hand side (“as poppy petals gently fall …” by John Potter) is the same as on the Parkhall (Antrim) UDR board.
“This project was completed through Belfast City Council’s ‘Promoting the Positive Expression of Cultural Heritage’ Programme, with funding through the EU Programme for Peace & Reconciliation in Northern Ireland and the Border Region of Ireland (PEACE III) under Priority 1.1. Building Positive Relations at a local level.”
“In proud memory of Ryan McCosh [and] Chris Hamilton, North Down battalion, Bangor”. The memorial board was officially dedicated on November 10th but was in place a month previously (Fb).
To the right of the wide shot, writing on side-walls can be seen that reads “Bangor Protestant Boys F[lute] B[and]” and “Did they beat the drum slowly? Did they play the fife lowly?”. The latter lines are from Eric Bogle’s song “No Man’s Land” which is about a young man (“Willie McBride”) dying on “the green fields of France” in WWI. (Here (youtube) is the recording by Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy.) McCosh and Hamilton appear to have been members of the flute band, rather than members of the Ulster Volunteers or the Troubles-era UVF.
The tribute to the new UK monarch King Charles III at the northeastern corner of Tiger’s Bay has been completed, with Ulster Banner and Union Flag on either side of a circular board showing a crown with the flowers of the “four nations” – thistle, shamrock, daffodil, and rose – both inside (in blue) and out (in red).
There is another piece using the same central board inside the estate – see I Will Plant Them.
The title of this entry comes from Charles’s coronation service, on May 6th, 2023 (pdf).
For ‘Loyalist Tiger’s Bay’ on the front wall, see the Stop The Boats; for the Orange Order symbols on the side wall (in the final image) – including the crown and Bible in the apex of the main wall – see Your Kingdom Will Endure Forever.
The “Union Bears” are a Rangers FC “ultras” supporters club whose web page currently features the giant tifo – “sign” or “banner” is too small a word, so the Italian word is used – unveiled at various games. This much smaller display (above) is on an electrical box on the Doagh Road next to the Iceland at the eastern edge of the Rathcoole estate.
Here is a selection of placards from the Village in south Belfast, many on the theme of the fight against Home Rule in 1912 and the creation of Northern Ireland in 1921.
The most interesting is perhaps the small placard sandwiched (in the image below) between the UVF territorial marking (see e.g. Welcome To The Village) and the “warning” to landlords (see Not A Dumping Ground). The quote form Salisbury – “Parliament has a right to govern the people of Ulster; it has no right to sell them into slavery” – comes from a speech made in 1892 (Launceston Examiner) and Spencer was addressing the Lords in 1893 when he said, “We feel like the Americans when the integrity of THEIR country was threatened, and, if necessary, we must shed blood to maintain the strength and salvation of THIS country” (Hansard). Both statements, that is, were made in connection with the second Home Rule bill (of 1893) rather than the third as the “1914” crest of the “South Belfast regiment” of the Ulster Volunteers would suggest.
Below is a reproduction of a stamp featuring Edward Carson, described in the Notre Dame collection. These stamps were sold as a fundraiser; they were not used for postage.
These are the boards at the chip shop (formerly a Spar and before that a Mace) in the centre of the Mourneview estate, Lurgan.
Above, and in detail below, are the pieces from the front of the shop, in Pollock Drive. Anti-clockwise from bottom-left:
First: “Believe, we dare not boast,/Believe, we do not fear/We stand to pay the cost,/In all that men hold dear.//What answer from the North?/One Law, one Land, one Throne/If England drive us forth,/We shall not fall alone!” Kipling’s poem Ulster.
Next (tall piece): A company, 1st battalion, Mid Ulster brigade UVF – Lurgan as well as Broxburn (outside Edinburgh) and Thornliebank (near Glasgow).
Next: PAF plus (out of frame in the wide shot) “When injustice becomes law resistance becomes duty.” The same panel was seen in Ballyclare, though for the 1st East Antrim battalion rather than the Mid Ulster brigade.
Above: A tribute to the Ulster Volunteers from the area: the 9th battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers joined the 108th brigade in the 36th (Ulster) Division; the 5th battalion joined the 31st brigade and the 10th (Irish) Division. This board goes back to (at least) 2011.
Finally (top left), a UDU/UDA board, to 1 company, D battalion, South Belfast. All of the remaining pieces are UVF/PAF.
Around the corner, in Mourne Road, a gallery of photographs of the Craigavon Protestant Boys (Fb) past and present, with a plaque in memory of Victor Stewart. “Our only crime is loyalty.”
In the adjacent Spelga Park: “Unbowed & unbroken – our only crime is loyalty – Mourneview/Gret estate bonfire” with an unusual combination of shamrock and Orange lily.
These are the UDA boards on Avenue Road, near Lurgan Park, which proved controversial when they were erected (in 2016), mainly because the second piece (below) “celebrat[es] 30 years of South Belfast/Lurgan 1 company D battalion” UDA and shows Troubles-era shows-of-strength (News Letter) and because it turned out the wall was owned by the Housing Executive (NIWorld).
The piece above describes the creation of the UDU in 1893, as a response to the second Home Rule bill, which was passed by the Commons but rejected in the Lords, and which Edward Saunderson celebrated by saying, “Home Rule is dead. It was dissected in the House of Commons, buried in the House of Lords, and even the Irish people would not trouble to give it a wake”. The UDU is as used an origin-story for the UDA, though often in vague terms, such as the verbiage here which reads “[the UDU] would become the birth stone of the Ulster Defence Association, as we looked to the patriotism of our forefathers to defend our communities”. (For more, see UDU-UFF-UDA. For Saunderson, see Union Is Strength.)
This year (2024), UVF lettering a stone’s throw away, on the other side of the entrance to the park, likewise drew criticism (BelTel | ArmaghI), but it has now been removed.
William III is the only member of the (Dutch) House Of Orange to rule the UK, as his marriage to Mary did not produce any offspring, and the crown passed to Mary’s sister Anne after both Mary (1694) and William (1702) had died (WP). Queen Elizabeth II was from the Saxe-Coburg And Gotha ‘house’ (changed during the Great War to “Windsor”) via her great-great-grandfather Prince Albert (of Victoria & Albert) but she symbolises Orangism to Northern Irish Protestants and in the portrait shown here she wears an orange jacket and an orange hat which has a band of orange lilies; the portrait is framed by a Union Flag and two clusters of orange lilies.
The plaque on the right reads “This mural is a tribute to her majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Funded by the loyal people of Portadown. To God be the glory.”
God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son (John 3:16). And greater love hath no man but to lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13, often used in the context of military sacrifice). But local homes are for local people. (The use of a stencil is a step up in sophistication.)
The Union Flag fills the empty frame where there used to be a list of locals who died in The Belfast Blitz.
Paddy Duffy Collection 