“With voice, pen or hand we will defend our land.” David (Davy) Patterson (12-10-1955 – 03-01-2019) was a member of the 1st East Belfast Rangers Supporters Club (Fb) and Albertbridge Glentoran Supporters Club (Funeral Times). This memorial board is the side-wall to the Somme Society mural (see Their Name Liveth Forevermore) and the Red Hand Commando memorial garden in Hunt Street, east Belfast.
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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“Always remembered by the officers and volunteers of South Londonderry/Randalstown Ulster Volunteer Force.” This memorial mural and plaque in Magherafelt names Charlie Wright, Jonathan Wallace, Ken Wilkinson, and Ian McArthur.
Of these, Wilkinson seems the most well-known, as he served as a PUP representative for the area. He commented on sectarian tensions in Randalstown in 1999 (An Phoblacht) and in Coleraine in 2009 (Irish Examiner), and spoke against sueprgrass trials in 2011 as a member of FAST (Irish Times | see previously FAST and FASTing For Human Rights And Justice); he was accused of intimidation of Catholics in Antrim in 2003 (An Phoblacht). He stood for a number of elected positions (e.g. 2013) but was unsuccessful.
Ostensibly for his stand against drug-sellers, in 2010 a pipe-bomb (BBC), and in 2011 a make-shift car-bomb (BelTel), were placed against his home and he received death threats in 2013 (politics.ie). He died in 2021 (BelTel | News Letter | Irish News).
The plaque in the memorial garden (shown below) reads, “This plaque is dedicated in memory of all of the loyalist people of Ulster who have suffered at the hands of the enemies of our land. Lest we forget.”
The mural in the background can be seen in Leckagh Remembers The Fallen.
Also included is a nearby bench celebrating the platinum jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.
Leckagh Drive, Magherafelt.
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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This UDA board on the eastern side of the Leckagh estate names six men who “gave everything in defence of our civil and religious liberties”: Lindsay Mooney (remembered also in the Fountain and Lincoln Court areas of Londonderry), Benny Redfern (this board replaces a board dedicated to Redfern alone), Cecil McKnight (Waterside), Gary Lynch (Waterside), Ray Smallwoods (Lisburn), William Campbell (Coleraine).
“North Antrim – Londonderry – Tyrone brigade”, “Remembered by all South Londonderry & Tyrone 6th batt.”
For the Ulster Volunteers/UVF memorials in the middle of the estate, see Leckagh Remembers The Fallen and Pause, Reflect, Remember.
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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Irish-language rappers and provocateurs Kneecap (web | ig) unveiled another mural in Hawthorn Street yesterday afternoon ahead of their Falls Park gig last night.
The post on last year’s mural (Níl Fáılte Roımh An RUC), Incendiary Device, included a shot of the sticker that has been turned into this year’s mural. The sticker, in turn, is based on a vintage mural painted in Strabane (England Get Out Of Ireland) and Belfast (Stad Maggie Anoıs).
Replaces the large GAA board.
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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Here are two portraits of the recently crowned King Charles III in east Belfast. The image at the centre of the lower board is the standard one we have seen many times; the one above, however, appears to reproduce a slightly stylised painting or graphic.
For another unusual image of King Charles, next to King William III, see Faith, Blood, Service, Sacrifice.
Lendrick Street and The Mount.
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
T03087 T03065 1st Raven Somme Society & The Loyal Flute Band celebrates King Charles III Coronation 6th May 2023
The second mural along Ballee Way, Ballymena (between The Crown and The Lion Wears The Crown), is a tribute to the UDR [Ulster Defence Regiment], established in 1970 to replace the Specials and amalgamated with the Royal Irish Rangers in 1992 to form the Royal Irish Regiment. The mural shows a UDR soldier manning a checkpoint, on top of a free-floating Northern Ireland filled in with a Union Flag.
For the mural when new, see M08022.
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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The third of the three murals on Ballee way is a Ballee Flute Band (formerly the Ballee Blues And Royals) mural showing the ‘lion and the unicorn’ from the UK coat of arms. The lion (England) wears a crown but the unicorn (Scotland) does not, since, as the nursery rhyme has it, “the lion beat the unicorn all around the town” (WP).
In place of the Royal Standard, “honi soit qui mal y pense” and “Dieu et mon droit” “, however, we find the Bible. “Drumtara”, and “In God we trust”. Behind are the Union flag and the flags of the Apprentice Boys and the Orange Order.
To the right of frame can be seen part of UDR Checkpoint.
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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Here is a gallery of six boards from Harryville (four from Larne St/Larne Rd and two from Queen Street). The newest one is shown above; it celebrates Colonel Saunderson, a founder of the Ulster Defence Union, and organisation formed in 1893 to resist the second Home Rule bill. As mentioned on the board, the UDU initially met in Belfast in March and Saunderson was among the signatories of the UDU manifesto (see page 5 of the [Sydney] Freeman’s for 1893-04-29). For more on Saunderson, see Union Is Strength. The second bill was passed by the Commons but defeated in the Lords. The champions of resistence against the third Home Rule bill were Carson and Craig, shown in the penultimate image with the “Ulster Covenant” of September, 2012.
The name “Ulster Defence Union” is being used by some anti-Agreement factions of the UDA as a name for the organisation (starting in 2007 – see WDA on Peter’s site). The second board, just below, is a 4th Battalion South East Antrim UDA/UDU board. The UDA was formed in September 1971 and hence was 50 years old in 2021. The remaining two images show the UDA on parade at Harryville Bridge and in front of Pentagon House.
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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Ballykeel 2 remembers: 1690, VE Day (75th anniversary in 2020 – see also north Belfast | Caw, Londonderry), the Somme 1916, and “all the young lives tragically lost in the Ballykeel estate” (Ian Boyd took his own life in 2006 – anglican.org).
Crebilly Road, Ballymena
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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JP Beadle’s painting “Battle of the Somme: Attack of the Ulster Division” hangs in Belfast City Hall (Royal Irish has a history of its purchase) but is reproduced here in a new Rathcoole memorial to the dead of the Great War. (A list of “Ulster’s VC Heroes” can be found at the bottom of The Dead We Honour Here, from the east Belfast memorial garden. For the King George V quote, see How Nobly They Fight And Die.)
“Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal/Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres./There is music in the midst of desolation/And a glory that shines upon our tears.” This is the second verse of Binyon’s For The Fallen, a poem whose fourth verse – “They shall not grow old …” – is used in dozens of murals and memorials. (And in one case, the fifth verse: They Sleep Beyond England’s Foam.)
John McCrae’s poem concludes the board to the left: “In August 2019 a group from Rathcoole Protestant Boys [Fb] travelled to the battlefields of World War 1 to respect the fallen. The images represented pay homage to that visit, which prved to be and continues to be a journey of discovery and appreciation for the sacrifices made by those brave souls who fought during the Great War and who paid the ultimate sacrifice. As a group and society we look to a better future in the knowledge that those who do not learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat it. ‘If ye break faith with us who die/We shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders fields.'”
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Copyright © 2023/2025 Paddy Duffy
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Paddy Duffy Collection 