This is another UVF wall in Bowtown and this one is North Down rather than East Belfast – see previously Bowtown UVF | Your Local Supplier | North Down UVF | The Cause Will Always Remain The Same.
Abbot Crescent, Newtownards
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
T02214
Here is a gallery of UVF stencils and boards in the Westwinds estate. Despite being in Newtownards, the UVF here is allied with the East Belfast brigade, rather than the North Down brigade – see Belfast Live for background.
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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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, Parkhall, Antrim
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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UVF volunteer Denver Smith was killed in the early morning of January 1st, 2000 by a gang of six men with machetes and pikes; the incident was perhaps drugs-related (Guardian | BBC-NI | Irish Times). The iconography, however, is all related to WWI, with soldiers moving across the fields of Flanders in the mural, above, and mourning by a graveside in the memorial garden, below.
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On the front of the wall, soldiers from the 36th (Ulster) Division stop at a grave as they march through Flanders Fields; just around the corner (second image) is a memorial to a (modern) UVF member “Vol. D[avid] Langley, 1969-2018”.
For the previous Somme mural in this spot, see Steeple Defenders.
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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East Antrim 1st battalion (specifically D Company?) and (North?) Belfast 3rd battalion mural in Erskine Park, Ballyclare.
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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The phrase “When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty” is commonly but spuriously attributed to Thomas Jefferson (Monticello). It is used here by “1st East Antrim Battalion – Ballyclare – Ulster Volunteer Force” in the Grange and Erskine Park estates (Ballyclare) to protest Brexit and the NI Protocol. The graveside mourners, however, belong to WWI.
Previously on the gable in Erskine Park: The Heaneys.
The one shown above is next to the 3rd batt/1st batt memorial – see Lest We Forget.
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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
T01803 T01825
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The previous UVF mural in Carrington Street (Volunteering | On Your Side) was paint-bombed in October, 2020, (Keep It Local) but was quickly replaced by this computer-generated board showing the Harland & Wolff cranes, a Long Kesh watch-tower, and a hooded gunman from the UVF’s East Belfast Battalion.
Carrington Street, east Belfast
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Copyright © 2022 Paddy Duffy
T01657
The new panels shown here re-re-image the side-wall of the mural on the left (see For Valour), which was dedicated to the Royal Irish Rifles of the Great War. We now see hooded UVF gunmen from the 1st East Antrim battalion, and an interesting quote from Edward Carson.
In September, 1914, six weeks after the Great War had begun, Edward Carson wrote to the Ulster Volunteers entreating “those who have not already responded” to “my call for Defenders of the Empire” to “enlist at once for the Ulster Division in Lord Kitchener’s Army”, fighting alongside “our fellow Britishers”: “Quit yourselves like men and comply with your country’s demand”. The impulse for the display of force shown here is the other, original, motivation for the paramilitary force, which Carson describes as “to defend our citizenship in the United Kingdom” (Strachan & Nally).
The Larches, Carrickfergus
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Copyright © 2022 Paddy Duffy
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The Weavers Grange estate in Newtownards was back in the news this week after a car was destroyed there by petrol bomb (Belfast Live). This is the latest in a long spring season of violence between by rival gangs (North Down UFF and the “Real” UFF, which was affiliated with the South East Antrim UDA (Sunday World)) that began in March and have caused over 30 families to leave the estate (Bel Tel). (Irish News March 30th | BBC April 8th | Bel Tel May 3rd). Bangor, Ballywalter, and Donaghadee have also seen violence (Belfast Live | BBC).
The images today are of the loyalist boards in Weaver’s Grange estates before the recent disturbances, which included the removal of at least some of South East Antrim UDA boards (Bel Tel | Sunday World which includes a photo of the penultimate board shown here being torn down).
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Copyright © 2022 Paddy Duffy
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Paddy Duffy Collection 