The Miriam Daly board (mounted in 2016) was temporarily taken down while the frame was painted to mark the fiftieth anniversary (“1974-2024”) of the creation of the INLA on December 8th, 1974 (WP). “Let the fight go on” are the final words of (INLA) hunger-striker Patsy O’Hara; the group officially ended its armed campaign in 2009 (BBC).
See also the fiftieth anniversary graffiti in Waterford St | mural and graffiti in the Bogside, Derry.
This is a new mural to UVF volunteers (l-r) Robert McIntyre, William Hannah, James McGregor, Robert Wadsworth, and Thomas Chapman, who were killed between 1973 and 1978. Compared to the previous mural, the volunteers generally present a more relaxed appearance, lacking their jackets and parkas, though still brandishing a wide variety of weapons.
It is not clear who the two gentlemen in the top, wearing vintage UVF arm-bands, are.
Carnan (or “C. Coy”) Street in the Shankill. For the mural to the left (to Joe Coggle and Paul McClelland) see S. Company, C. Company.
Prepped for the launch:
July 7th: The plaster was taken back to the brick and then re-plastered and painted before the mural was added.
The hooded gunman at the New Mossley playground – seen previously in Welcome To New Mossley Play Area – has been upgraded with a golden UVF emblem (shown last, below), and has been joined by two new pieces: the printed board above and the low wall below. The 3rd battalion also includes Rathcoole, Mount Vernon, and Tiger’s Bay.
After a long spring and summer of inaction, a new tribute to UDA assassin Stevie “Top Gun” McKeag has been put in place in the lower Shankill, replacing the flat-capped version of 2016.
In Tolstoy’s War And Peace, the prince Andrei Bolkonsky at one early point remarks, “It is not given to people judge what’s right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more so than in what they consider right and wrong.” But after he is wounded at the Battle Of Austerlitz in 1805 and again in 1812 at the Battle Of Borodino, he loses his admiration for the blood-thirsty Napoleon and for war in general, and comes to think that events are a function of many individual decisions.
Stevie McKeag, hit-man for the UDA’s second battalion (west Belfast) ‘C company’, killed at least a dozen Catholics between 1990 and 1998 (WP). The version presented on the left-hand side-wall (just below) begins, “It is not given to people to judge what’s right or wrong. People have internally been mistaken and will be mistaken …” which seems to be contradictory, and then continues “… and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong” which is difficult to parse so as to give the intended meaning.
The mirrored hooded gunmen on either side of the quote come from an old mural in the estate – see UDU-UFF-UDA.
The smiling McKeag is here shown in the main panel wearing a green beret (as is the anonymous volunteer in the side-wall) and commando jumper (with shoulder patches) as though he were a “military commander” in the Commandos or Royal Marines of the British Army. The UDU, the poppies, and the graveside mourners in the right-hand side-wall are used to put McKeag’s actions in the context of resistance to Home Rule and the British Army’s role in the Great War.
For the composition of the main panel, as well as its use of boards on top of the background, compare with the UDA piece in the Woodvale. The translation into English of the UDA’s, UFF’s, and UYM’s Latin mottos – [Quis separabit] / None shall separate us | Feriens tego / Striking I defend | Terrae Filius / Son Of The Soil – is unusual, as is the bouquet of flowers behind the poppy.
For more, including the mourning soldiers, see the entry at Extramural Activity.
“Land of the free because of the brave”. “Remember with pride”. “Those we love don’t go away/They walk beside us every day”. “Dedicated to our fallen comrade”.
April 25th, 2024: The boards were taken off, revealing an older version that stood 2010-2015.
[In the middle circle there were, over the years, a series of printed portraits of McKeag (and one painted version). For the version from 2014, see M11119; see also the image 2011, which links back to other versions from 2010, 2009, 2008, and 2007).]
May 3rd, 2024: Scaffolding in front of the wall
This layer of paint (and plaster?) was also taken off, to reveal the remains of the original King Rat mural on the wall – see X15041 in the Seosamh Mac Coille collection.
Here is a selection of placards from the Village in south Belfast, many on the theme of the fight against Home Rule in 1912 and the creation of Northern Ireland in 1921.
The most interesting is perhaps the small placard sandwiched (in the image below) between the UVF territorial marking (see e.g. Welcome To The Village) and the “warning” to landlords (see Not A Dumping Ground). The quote form Salisbury – “Parliament has a right to govern the people of Ulster; it has no right to sell them into slavery” – comes from a speech made in 1892 (Launceston Examiner) and Spencer was addressing the Lords in 1893 when he said, “We feel like the Americans when the integrity of THEIR country was threatened, and, if necessary, we must shed blood to maintain the strength and salvation of THIS country” (Hansard). Both statements, that is, were made in connection with the second Home Rule bill (of 1893) rather than the third as the “1914” crest of the “South Belfast regiment” of the Ulster Volunteers would suggest.
Below is a reproduction of a stamp featuring Edward Carson, described in the Notre Dame collection. These stamps were sold as a fundraiser; they were not used for postage.
Commemorations of the INLA’s fiftieth anniversary have so far been limited to graffiti – see Saoırse Go Deo in Derry and Let The Fight Go On in Belfast – but here we have two deliberately painted panels in the Bogside (specifically Meenan Square) (one replacing The Way We Were).
“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:
This UDA board is at the bottom of Linn Road (Larne) at the entrance to the Antiville estate. “Antiville” is perhaps derived from the Irish “an tıgh bhıle, “the house of/by the sacred tree”.
Here are some more UVF boards (in addition to those seen in 2022’s Bowtown UVF) that have been added along the length of Abbot Drive. Both “East Belfast” and “North Down” rival factions are included.
The “Lest we forget” board in the final image has been seen before, but has been moved to the location shown after being in the memorial garden.
“Armed and ready – Protestant Action Force [PAF] – ‘The Elite'”. The PAF name was used to cover semi-independent sub-groups of the UVF, active in the 1970s and 1980s in mid-Ulster and Newtownabbey (WP). The name was given in connection with rioting in Newtownards in late 2021 (BelTel).
These new boards claiming that the PAF was an “elite” are in in the Whitehill area of Bangor. The second such board, shown below, is covering up a memorial to David Gordon Dalzell (for background see Pride Of Whitehill).
The Red Hand Commando – another UVF sub-group/cover-name – also claim to be “the elite”; see e.g. 99.9% Need Not Apply.
Paddy Duffy Collection 