For their “50th anniversary 1973-2023” the Cloughfern Young Conquerors (Fb) mounted a new board on the wall of the Eastway social club in Rathcoole; a parade and fun day took place on August 19th (Fb).
Back in June, a mural was painted on the long wall at the entrance to Cloughfern; see 50 Years Unbroken.
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“Big Ribbo” is David Conville, who died last year of injuries sustained in an assault by a friend (Bel Tel | Belfast Live). This memorial board shows him playing in the Ulster First Flute (Sandy Row) flute band (Fb).
For the bonfire mural, see Guiding Light.
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Cloughfern Young Conquerors flute band (Fb) was founded 50 years ago this year – 1973, the same year as the UDA began using the name “UFF.
The ‘wigned-maiden harp’ emblem is used on both sides. With “Quis separabit” is the Royal Irish/Ulster Regiment/Rifles, but perhaps the UDR is intended. On the left, the style and surround imitates the emblem of the UDA; the right-hand side reproduces a former mural to the UDA’s John “Grug” Gregg and Rab Carson on the nearby gable – see Gregg & Carson. Gregg was a bass drummer in the band; he and three other bandsmen were fined in 1997 for assaulting police officers at an Apprentice Boys march (Bel Tel). Gregg was shot, along with Carson, in 2003, in the feud with Adair’s west Belfast C Company (WP).
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T02818 T02816 T02817 T02814 [T02815] absent friends lest we forget
There’s a new King Charles III board in Boyne Square, Larne, of a similar sort to those we have seen in various other areas and using the same “lounging” image of Charles as in east Belfast, Carrickfergus, and the Caw (Londonderry) – though the quote is different: “My mother never ceased to pray for the best times for Northern Ireland and its people” (source unknown). The celebration of the 1914 gun-running that was on the wall previously (see Amazing Night In Larne) has been moved to the side wall, replacing King Billy.
“Operation Lion – a fascinating snapshot of an historical moment. The Larne gun-running was a major operation organised in Ireland by Major Frederick Crawford and Captain Wilfred [sic] Spender for the Ulster Unionist Council to equip the Ulster Volunteer Force. The operation involved the shipment of almost 25,000 rifles and between three and five million rounds of ammunition, with shipments landing in Larne, Donaghadee and Bangor in the early hours between Friday 24th and Saturday 25th April 1914.”
“Taking its name from the S.S. Clyde Valley that landed at Larne Harbour on 24th April 1914, Clyde Valley Defenders Flute Band were formed in 1995, with several of our founding members still marching with the band today. Following several years on the raod, the band were then renamed Clyde Valley Volunteers, before later being constituted as Clyde Valley Cultural & Musical Society (Clyde Valley Flute Band). The formation of Clyde Valley was much more than that of establishing a flute band. The band’s aim is to promote the Protestant culture through the teaching of music and history, whilst proudly remembering the sacrifices made by our forefathers. The Officers and Members of CLyde Valley Flute Band dedicate this mural to the role of the men and women in the Larne Gun-Running on 24th April 1914. They were Gunrunners.”
For the plaque and the Central Antrim Regiment see Central Antrim Regiment.
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T02812 [T02811] T02813 T02810 “falce marique potens” is the motto of Larne
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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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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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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There was previously a (painted) mural on this wall – see Passchendaele Court – but this latest display is a large printed board, with photographs blended together and framed by graveside mourners, poppies, and the emblems of the Pride Of Govan flute band and the Govan Somme Association (Fb), which also supported the previous mural.
To the left, as seen in the final images, is a smaller UVF (1st Battalion) A Company 5th Platoon board – like the other new board in the street We Will Always Be Ready (and on the other side of Conway Street – see When Needed We Shall Rise Again).
Conway Walk, Belfast
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“S.L.M.M.F.B.” [Sergeant Lindsay Mooney Memorial flute band] “In glorious memory: Lindsay Mooney, Ben Redfern, Cecil McKnight, Gary Lynch, Ray Smallwoods, William Campbell. ‘At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them.'”
The flute band was formed in 1973 after the St. Patrick’s day death of Lindsay Mooney, a UDA member killed by the premature explosion of a bomb near Lifford, County Donegal (Sutton). The band’s 50th anniversary march takes place on the 18th (Bands Forum), though it was not in operation between 1993 and 2013 and beyond (NI World). There are, however, videos on youtube of the band parading in 2021 and in 2022 and they will march for the 50th anniversary of the band later this year (2023) (youtube).
For the dates of death of the other five, see The Terror, Threats, And Dread in Ballymoney; the six are also named in a Waterside mural to Cecil McKnight; Gary Lynch has a solo mural in the Waterside. William Campbell is remembered in Coleraine.
The mural was erected in 2021 in Lincoln Court, Londonderry, on the same wall as a former UDA memorial mural to the six but which had been blank since 2011.
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The [Sergeant] Lindsay Mooney Memorial Flute Band was formed in 1973 after the St. Patrick’s day death of Lindsay Mooney, a UDA member killed by the premature explosion of a bomb near Lifford, County Donegal (Sutton). The band dissolved in 1993 but commemorative nights are still held (NI World). It has presumably re-formed, as there are videos on youtube of the band parading in 2021 and in 2022 and they will march for the 50th anniversary of the band later this year (2023) (youtube).
The board above is in the Lincoln Court area of Londonderry, from where Mooney and the band both hailed. “To those of us who criticise, to those who cannot see, just remember in a foreign land fell a better man than me.”
The Ballad Of Lindsay Mooney: youtube | lyrics
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