Modern UVF volunteers in balaclavas stand with heads bowed on either side of the Ulster Tower in Thiepval, standing among orange lilies and red poppies.
On the left the 10th Scottish Rifles (AWM) commence a raid, below the emblem of the Ulster Volunteer Force, and on the right, the Royal Fusiliers appear to march off to war in a press photograph (Flickr), below the emblem of the 36th (Ulster) Division.
In Grange Drive, Ballyclare, on the same as wall, and using part of the frame from, a previous UDA board: Young Guns.
The Denver Smith mural in the Steeple, Antrim, has been replaced with the printed board (shown above and immediately below) which retains the same elements of the mural, including the WWI soldiers and the emblem of the 36th (Ulster) Division. (For information about Smith, see Here Lies A Soldier.)
Memorial boards in the same style and palette have also been mounted on adjacent walls to two members of the modern Ulster Volunteer Force. To the left, Mark McCausland, who died in 2024 (Wray’s); the board in his memory replaces a UVF flag (seen in Pass Not This Spot In Sorrow). To the right, Davy Langley, who died in 2018 (Funeral Times); there was previously a mural to his memory in the same spot (see Ulster Volunteer Forces)
The News Letter reports that the new arch at the junction of Templemore Avenue and Beechfield Street is the first new arch in east Belfast for fifty years (News Letter). There was long ago an arch in Dee Street (Fb).
On the northern side are the emblems of local lodges – Ballymacarrett Junior District LOL No. 3, Royal Arch Purple District Chapter No. 6, Ballymacarrett District No. 2 Women’s LOL, Ballymacarrett District LOL No. 6, Royal Black District Chapter No. 4 Ballymacarrett, Apprentice Boys Of Derry Belfast Browning Club – as well as “Marching Bands of east Belfast”.
On the southern side, we see (l-r) “Faith & Loyalty”, the Relief Of Derry, the Battle Of The Boyne, JP Beadle’s painting of the 36th Division going over the top at the Battle Of The Somme, King Charles III, the stained-glass window in Schomberg House in memoriam (not: “in memorium”) murdered OO members.
The arch was officially dedicated on June 30th. Ballymacarrett Orange Hall is a bit further down Templemore Avenue, on Albertbridge Road.
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.
Here is a gallery of images of the boards and flags on the fencing around “Buck’s Shed” in Rathfern, Newtownabbey. The usual themes are represented: the 36th Division and WWI (Mountainview Battlefields Association Fb), the British military, Rangers FC, and George Best.
This is a smallish board in New Mossley, Newtownabbey:
On the left: “11th/12th Battalion Royal Irish Rifles (South and Central Antrim Volunteers) – The Ulster Memorial Tower, Thiepval, France. The Ulster Memorial Tower was unveiled by Field Marshall Sir Henry Wilson in Thiepval, France, on 19 November 1921, in dedication to the contributions of the 36th (Ulster) Division during The Great War 1914-1918. The tower marks the site of the Schwaben redoubt, against which the (Ulster) Division advanced on the first day of the Battle of the Somme.”
Specifically, the Central Antrim regiment (of the Ulster Volunteers) became the 12th battalion RIR, while the South Antrim regiment (of the Ulster Volunteers) became the 11th battalion RIR; both joined the 108th brigade in the 36th division.
The redoubt is also the site of the Thiepval Memorial.
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).
On the right: “The Great War 1914-1918. 32,186 killed, wounded, missing, 36th (Ulster) Division. They fought together as brothers in arms, they died together and now they sleep side by side. To them we owe a solemn obligation. They died that we might live.”
The sword-in-cross is a common war memorial but the one pictured is probably the Tyne Cot memorial to the Commonwealth dead of WWI (see Great War 100 Reads).
See also: The same boards (at larger size) next to the memorial garden – South And Central Antrim Volunteers. And from the historical record, True Heroes – which includes two small, painted, 36th Division boards from the street in 2009.
These images show the scene at Dunraven Court, a Choice (web | Fb) social housing community in east Belfast.
The main piece (above) shows photographs purporting to be of the 36th (Ulster) Division during WWI, above the title “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori”/”It is Sweet and Honourable to die for one’s country” (which WWI poet Wilfred Owen called “the old lie“) and two epigrams: (left) “And you unborn then, remember that their luck, skill, and nerve where pushed to the limits and they were young like you” and (right) “They layed down the glory of their youth upon the altar of freedom”.
The first is a paraphrase of Cecil Day-Lewis’s poem in homage to the airmen of WWII’s Battle Of Britain, which ends: “And you, unborn then, what will you make of it—/This shadow-play of battles long ago?/Be sure of this: they pushed to the uttermost limit/Their luck, skill, nerve. And they were young like you.”
The second does not appear to be a quotation; it is perhaps inspired by Lincoln’s Letter To Mrs Bixby (WP), perhaps via the film Saving Private Ryan (youtube).
On the wall below the large piece are plaques to Cordner, Long, Bennett, and Seymour from the Troubles-era UVF – see Standing Guard – and to their right ‘Poppy Trail’ plaques of local WWI casualties Joseph Agnew, William Lowry, John Dornan, John Ritchie, William Reid, James Rea, and Robert Atkinson.
A little way into the complex we find a small memorial garden to two UVF volunteers, deceased post-Agreement: Lee Wilson and David Stewart.
Compared to the image (from 2021) seen in The Sacrifice Remains The Same, a blue background and a new wall of Poppy Trail plaques (for the Poppy Trail see this 2017 entry on the board) have been added to the Cosy Somme Association’s tribute to British Army soldiers from the 36th (Ulster) Division in WWI and the modern-day Royal Irish Regiment. (See also the image in Alain Miossec’s collection from earlier this year.)
Ogilvie Street, east Belfast, with a bonus image below of the milkman just around the corner, next to Piccola Parma.
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.
“Dedicated to the memory of the men and women who served with the UDR C.G.C (Conspicuous Gallantry Cross) under OPERATION BANNER during the Troubles. Lest we forget. Also in memory of local veteran Geoffrey Lindsay who passed away on the 12th November 2022.”
The Conspicuous Gallantry Cross is shown (in the close-up below) at the top of the board; it was awarded to the UDR retroactively in 2006 for its role in ‘Operation Banner’, i.e. the deployment of British Army troops to Northern Ireland – the regiment had been folded into the Royal Irish Regiment in 1992. The mural is specifically to the 5th (Co. Londonderry) battalion – here is a list of the 11 battalions (and bases).
There is also a UDR information board (and an Ulster Volunteers board) in the green-space in front of this mural – see Leckagh Remembers The Fallen.
The memorial mural to the 36th (Ulster) Division on the end wall has also been completed since last (2023) year – in-progress images for both murals from last August are included below. For the previous murals on these walls, see C07766.
Two other pieces are included, below: the UVF mural was seen last year in Pause, Reflect, Remember; the ‘Ignite the fire’ board appears to be new.
Leckagh Drive, Magherafelt
August 27th green-washing of previous mural:
August 27th in-progress image of mural immediately above:
