Compromise Or Conflict

“Compromise” in “Compromise or conflict” hints at the potential of the peace process but loyalist muraling continues to present hooded gunmen (in this case from “1st battalion, west Belfast UVF”) engaged in physical-force activity. In the same vein, see Prepared For Peace, Ready For War.

The first appearance of Eddie The Trooper – a definite increase in the intensity of violent imagery – will be in 1996.

Later with a side-wall (to the right of image) that read simply “A. company / 1st battalion”

Dover Place, west Belfast

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Copyright © 1995 Paddy Duffy
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Young Conquerors

The Young Conquerors flute band (Fb) and the South Belfast UVF celebrate the 300th anniversary of the battle of the Boyne, with a new mural in Pine Street, Donegall Pass, south Belfast. The emblems of the RIR and 36th Division are in the bottom corners, and the flag on the left is a regimental flag of the Ulster Volunteers.

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Copyright © 1990 Paddy Duffy
T00123

Village RHC

“YCV/Red Hand Commando/PAF – 4th battalion, south Belfast brigade, Village”

Hooded gunmen fire over a modified UVF emblem, with four quadrants of flowers, which appear to be (top left) a poppy (or rose?) with one shamrock leaf and some thistle leaves, (top right) three shamrock leaves and a thistle, (bottom right and left) thistles.

Broadway, in the Village. There was also a side-wall, to the left, dedicated to Stevie McCrea – see the Peter Moloney Collection.

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Copyright © 1990 Paddy Duffy
T00119

Striking At Republican Targets

Hooded UVF volunteers from “1st battalion, B company” armed with an assault rifle and an Uzi take aim at unspecified targets.

On the side-wall to the left it reads, “The UVF reserve the right to strike at republican targets where and when the opportunity arises” – see also the Peter Moloney Collection.

Ohio Street, Woodvale, west Belfast

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Copyright © 1988 Paddy Duffy
T00146 T00229

Tiger’s Bay UVF

UVF volunteers in balaclavas take aim other across a free-floating Northern Ireland with an Uzi and an assault rifle. The emblem supported by flags on the right is unusual for its inclusion of a ?large daisy? and pink ribbon.

The location of this wall is unknown, which suggests the site of the Community Centre – please get in touch if you know where it was.

Tiger’s Bay, north Belfast

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Copyright © 1988 Paddy Duffy
T00226 T00125

Ballysillan UVF

“Always remembered, never forgotten”. This mural is unique in providing the length of the sentences being served by various members of the “B + D” company of the Ballysillan UVF: Kerr, Tarr, Bill, Watt, and Beattie are serving “Life”, while others – Courtney, Gilliland, Campbell, and Smith – are serving “stip” sentences (stipulated minimums) of twenty years or more; Stewart is being held “S.O.S.P”, that is, at the “Secretary Of State’s Pleasure”, presumably because he was convicted as a minor; the rest (Addley, McKay, McClure, McKinney, Murphy) are serving ordinary terms, except for Boreland and Suitters who are marked as “murdered” and Rollins who is “deceased”.

Here is a pamphlet from the Committee On The Administrative Of Justice on the “life” prisoners in NI prisons in the years prior to 1988 (pdf).

Suitters was shot by the IRA in 1975 at his shop (Sutton) not far from this mural in Legann Street.

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Copyright © 1988 Paddy Duffy
T00114

Then And Now

“They fought then for the cause of Ulster, we will fight now.” The 75th anniversary of the Ulster Volunteers is celebrated in this mural in Dover Place, west Belfast. On the left of the Northern Island is an Ulster Volunteer in period (1912) garb standing on a patch of ground, on the right, a modern (1987) paramilitary in hood and fatigues standing on a city footpath. The Ulster Volunteers as such did not fight for Ulster – they instead joined the British Army and fought “for King and Empire” in WWI, after which Home Rule was applied only to 26 counties of Ireland and Northern Ireland was created and remained within the UK.

See also: UVF 75th Anniversary

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Copyright © 1988 Paddy Duffy
T00126 [T00115]

Deserted! Well – I Can Stand Alone

These two murals are side-by-side in Craven Street. On the right, a farmer’s wife defends the farm (the stone wall) in order to preserve it as part of the UK (the Union Flag) despite the threat of Home Rule; on the left, “in proud and loving memory” of three UVF volunteers assassinated by the IRA: Shankill Butcher Lenny Murphy, John Bingham, and William “Frenchie” Marchant. “Lest we forget.”

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Copyright © 1988 Paddy Duffy
T00198 T00117

UVF 75th Anniversary

This mural celebrates the 75th anniversary of the Ulster Volunteers, 1912, with a portrait of Edward Carson and a rifle mounted on the back of a car (based on an image from 1914, included below). The Ulster Volunteers joined the Royal Irish Rifles as part of Kitchener’s Army in WWI, and when the war ended some of the survivors joined the northern RIC and the post-partition RUC, but at that point it is impossible to track them as a cohesive group and the only connection to the Ulster Volunteer Force of 1965 is the name.

Shankill Road (on the wall of the PUP offices, just west of ACT and the Bayardo memorial), west Belfast

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Copyright © 1988 Paddy Duffy
T00128