“South East Antrim Brigade UFF. In proud memory of Brig. John “Grugg” Gregg and all fallen comrades. 4th Batt. A B C Coys. Lest we forget.” Gregg is known for the attempted killing of Gerry Adams and for being killed on the orders of Johnny Adair, which led to the expulsion of Adair’s company from the lower Shankill (WP).
Orkney Drive, Ballykeel 2, Ballymena. Seen previously in 2010: M05987.
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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This sequence of UDA “memorial” murals along Island Street replaces a similar sequence from roughly 2005. Novel features are the poppies featured throughout and the use of Lawrence Binyon’s poem For The Fallen in the third panel (see below). The image above – the left-most of the four – depicts two men standing in reflection upon an above-ground grave, also symbolic of the fallen of World War I, but the mourners are modern UDA volunteers.
Island Street, east Belfast
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Above is a trio of boards on a wall behind the Antiville community centre, softening (somewhat) the very aggressive set of six UDA boards next to it.
The experts’ best guess is that the gentleman on the white horse (on the right of the painting) is James Scott, Duke of Monmouth, at the siege of Maastricht in 1673. Scott was commander of the English forces fighting with the French during the Franco-Dutch war. It’s not clear, thus, what the connection is to the Antiville area of Larne or the wars fought in Ireland over the English crown. It was painted by Jan Wyck, who also did a painting of the Battle of the Boyne. On either side (as shown below) are a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II and the English version of the Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom.
Eddie The Trooper has his own Visual History page.
Hampton Crescent, Antiville, Larne
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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Bullets and bonfires in Craigyhill, Larne: the hooded gunman shown above is next to the boards shown in The Loyalist Executioner in Glenfarne Place, Craigyhill (Larne).
Both it and the second image (from the top of Cairngorm Drive) have been added since July, 2022. For the claim to be the “world’s tallest bonfire”, see Commonwealth Handling Equipment.
The image of a pair of assault rifles is in Fanad Drive.
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19-year-old Andrew “Macey” Mason was wearing his Hillhall band uniform and a UDA badge while en route to visit his girlfriend on April 19th, 1987, when he was set upon by two men near Carnlough on the Antrim coast. The gruesome details of the beatings and stabbings that followed are given in Lost Lives (#2827).
This is the second (see previously 2010 – M05938) memorial board to Mason in Hillhall. The memorial plaque (below) is a new version of the older plaque to John McMichael, Raymond Smallwood[s], Jim Guiney, and Mason.
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
T02320 T02321 T02319 Hillhall Gardens “Sons of Ulster do not be anxious for we will never forget you as long as the sun shines and the wind blows and the rain falls and the rivers of Ulster flow to the sea. Always remembered by volunteers from Hillhall C Company.”
The South Belfast UDA/UFF commander John McMichael (1948-1987) was killed by an IRA car bomb. In addition to organising a team of assassins in the 70s and 80s, he founded a Political Research Group and wrote two documents proposing an independent Northern Ireland, 1979’s Beyond the Religious Divide and 1987’s Common Sense (available at CAIN), promoting the philosophy of ‘Ulster nationalism’. The quote on the board comes from the end of the Introduction to Common Sense:
“There is no section of this divided Ulster community which is totally innocent or indeed totally guilty, totally right or totally wrong. We all share the responsibility for creating the situation, either by deed or by acquiescence. Therefore we must share the responsibility for finding a settlement and then share the responsibility of maintaining good government.”
Above: “Old Warren A Coy/B Coy”. Right: “One man, one love, one country. Commonsense. In loving memory. Quis separabit.” around a portrait of McMichael. Left: “Common sense” with an Ulster Banner Northern Ireland.
Drumbeg Drive, Lisburn
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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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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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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This is a blue-backgrounded version of the formerly grey UFF mural in Lincoln Court, Londonderry, seen previously in 2015.
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“South East Antrim UDA UYM. In proud memory of Brig John Gregg, CO Gerry Evans, Andrew Gillespie, Billy Graham, Jamie Penny, Ken Thursby, T. Daly, J. McClure, B. Hobbs, B. Smyth”. Graham replaces William Hutchings, and Thursby is a new addition. The original version of the mural, dating back to 2004, included J. Kelly, W. Gordon, G. Fittis, A. Helm (M05230) – these are perhaps below the fence-line.
Gregg was a hero to loyalists for seriously injuring Gerry Adams in 1984; he was killed in the Adair feud in 2003 (Guardian). Evans was killed by the INLA on April 27th, 1994, shot at his shop in the Northcott centre. (Lost Lives 3472. Sutton describes Evans as a “civilian”.) He was remembered first/long ago (1996) in a Cloughfern mural – see T00217.
Compare to the similar SEA UDA murals in Ballymena and (formerly) Glengormley.
Kilgreel Road, Antrim
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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Tommy Herron was kidnapped and executed in September 1973, probably by members of his own East Belfast UDA brigade in a dispute over money from a robbery (Irish Times | Lost Lives 938 | Holland | BelTel) though others allege it was by the security forces (BelTel), perhaps the SAS or MI5. These BBC News videos (one | two) give a sense of the perplexity of the case; a HET inquiry years later was inconclusive (Irish Times). His 18-year-old brother-in-law, Michael Wilson, had been killed by the UDA at their shared house in June, perhaps in a case of mistaken identity, perhaps as an informer (WP | Lost Lives 877).
Despite the internal conflict over Herron’s position and profiteering, 25,000 people attended his funeral and hearkened to the words of the Reverend Ian Paisley (AP video | Patterson images). The AP video shows ranks of UDA volunteers marching in the procession; the mural was launched with (two) masked UDA volunteers flanking speaker Dee Stitt (BelTel).
Orlock Gardens, Kilcooley, Bangor
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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