assault rifle

How Real Men ‘Take A Knee’

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Here is a survey of PUL boards (from left to right) at the shops in the centre of the village of Moygashel, just south of Dungannon.

First is a British Army soldier in a firing position. Compare this board to Now Is The Time To Kneel in Clonduff, Castlereagh, which suggested that the time for soldiers to kneel was in mourning for Queen Elizabeth.

The subject of the second image is obscure. Vanguard as a political and activist group dissolved in 1977 (WP) and the name and emblem have been taken up by the Vanguard Bears, a Rangers supporters’ club (see e.g. Defending Our Traditions).

Third is a children’s mural, produced (in part) by children from Howard primary school.

The ‘Time To Decide’ and UDR 8th (Co. Tyrone) battalion roll of honour were seen previously, alongside two others which are now absent, in Belfast Agreement Null & Void.

Beyond those is a tarp celebrating Queen Elizabeth II’s platinum jubilee, in 2022.

Finally, a Moygashel Youth Club (Fb) mural in disrepair.

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If Our Shores Are Threatened

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“If our shores are threatened/We will take up arms/To defend our loyal cause/Our culture and our heritage/Our freedoms and our laws.” Moygashel’s own (William) Wesley Somerville, a member of both the UVF and UDR, was killed by a bomb prematurely exploding as he placed it on the minibus of the Miami Showband in July of 1975. Three members of the band died, one of them Protestant, along with volunteers Somerville and Harris Boyle from Portadown (WP). “He died for Ulster” (on the plaque).

“When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.”

Moygashel Park, Moygashel

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New Lodge Volunteers

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Twenty portraits in circular frames have replaced the twenty-one square portraits seen on the ‘Out Of The Ashes Of 1969’ mural in the New Lodge. From left to right, those portrayed are Michael P Neill, Seamus McCusker, Gerard Crossan, Colm Mulgrew, Francis Liggett, Brian Fox, John Kelly, Robert Allsopp, Louis Scullion, Billy Reid, Danny O’Hagan, Michael Kane, Sean McIlvenna, Jim O’Neill, Rosemary Bleakley, Martin McDonagh, James McCann, James Sloan, Dan McCann. Paddy McManus is no longer included, as compared with the earlier portraits.

For the mural without any portraits, at the time of its launch in 2012, see X00857.

See also the New Lodge IRA memorial garden.

New Lodge Road, north Belfast.

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Saoırse Don Phalaıstín

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Here is an INLA/IRSP/RSYM pro-Palestine mural from Derry (see also يومنا قادم). “PFLP” stands for “Popular Front For The Liberation Of Palestine” (WP). A very similar PFLP-INLA board was seen in west Belfast: Peoples United. There was PFLP graffiti in Creggan: Victory To The PFLP.

The first two are from William Street and the Bogside; the small INLA nail-up in the final image is in Creggan.

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Still Undefeated

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The UVF mural in Carlingford Street, east Belfast, that the one shown here replaces was controversial at the time (2013) because of its proposed inclusion of two hooded gunmen in fatigues firing into the air. In response to the concerns expressed, the final version put both figures in WWI uniforms and had only one firing into the air – the other gazed downward in prayer – and the modern UVF was referenced only in the forms of the towers and cages of Long Kesh and of a roll of honour. (See Years Of Sacrifice for both the draft and final murals.)

The cages are retained in this new board but the depiction of violence is more explicit here than in the proposed mural a decade ago: at the centre of this piece is a hooded gunman carrying an assault rifle.

For the wider context of re-imaging and re-re-imaging (that is, the disappearance and return of PUL hooded gunmen), see Visual History 11.)

Long Kesh’s cages are also included in a Shankill board to Stevie McCrea – A True Soldier Of Ulster.

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Ulster Volunteers 1912 Ulster Covenant In memory of all friends & comrades of the cosy bar east belfast

The Defence Of Ardoyne

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Martin Meehan joined the IRA in 1966 and was one of a few IRA volunteers defending Catholics in Ardoyne (Ard Eoın) in August 1969. Rioting did not cease there until the 16th, when British troops were finally deployed to the Crumlin Road to block mobs coming from the Woodvale and Shankill. Meehan resigned after the failure of the IRA to defend Ardoyne, Clonard, and Divis. This Magill article from the time summarises the IRA’s actions as “late, amateur and uncertain”. (Meehan would later rejoin the IRA and PIRA.)

For a close-up of the plaque, see Show Me The Man.

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Peoples United

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The slogan “When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty” has been used in loyalist responses to Brexit and the NI Protocol, in Lurgan, Ballyclare, and Moygashel (one | two). It is used here in reference to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. PFLP (in the bottom-left corner) is the Popular Front For The Liberation Of Palestine (WP) (seen previously in The Popular Front | Solidarity With Palestine | Resistance Is Not Terrorism and murals showing Leila Khaled); in the bottom-right is the emblem of the INLA – starry plough, red star of socialism, Tricolour, and fist holding an assault rifle.

Falls Road, west Belfast

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Ulster Says No To An ILA

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“Resistance to IRA demands – “Every word spoken in Irish is like a bullet being fired in the struggle for Irish freedom” – Ulster says no to an ILA.” The precise wording and the author of the quotation are unclear. Nelson McCausland of the DUP gives it as “Now every phrase you learn is a bullet in the freedom struggle” and attributes it to Sınn Féın’s Pádraıg Ó Maolchraoıbhe in May 1982 (BelTel | Nelson’s View). The Irish language is not, of course, the exclusive property of militant republicanism, and, although the IRA has ceased its campaign and decommissioned its weapons, it is used here in conjunction with an image of a gunman firing an assault rifle in order to provoke fear against an Irish Language Act. The bill – enacted by Westminster rather than Stormont – became law last (2022) December (BBC). The poster dates from 2022 or 2021.

See previously: A Tale Of Two Protests | Acht Anoıs.

Below are “PSNIRA” targets and an old Leo Varadkar poster – see A Return To Violence.

Beechfield Avenue, Carrickfergus

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In The Shadows Of Our Community

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“It is not for riches, fame or glory that we remain in the shadows of our community , but for its protection.”

These words are echoed on the central stone in the garden of reflection, with adjacent North Down UDA roll of honour: “‘Who shall separate us?’ Right up to the present day, these words have been the inspiration and motivation of numerous men and women to serve, fight and die for the defence of their homeland, its people and its heritage. This selfless action is not for riches, fame or glory, but is freely given out of a love of freedom, commitment to the faith and culture of our nation, and a desire that all future generation in all communities can live in peace.”

Movilla Street and Wallace’s Street, off Upper Movilla Street. “Loyalist Movilla” in Newtownards.

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“This garden of reflection is paying tribute to the men and women who have lost their lives in all wars and conflicts, past and present, here in Northern Ireland and throughout the world, in the hope that one day we can all live together, side by side in peace regardless of religion, colour or creed.
“‘Who shall separate us?’ Right up to the present day, these words have been the inspiration and motivation of numerous men and women to serve, fight and die for the defence of their homeland, its people and its heritage. This selfless action is not for riches, fame or glory, but is freely given out of a love of freedom, commitment to the faith and culture of our nation, and a desire that all future generation in all communities can live in peace. Their sacrifice, commitment and dedication will always be appreciated and will never be forgotten.”
“In our past the soldiers fought, for freedom and for pride, some of them were wounded, many of them died. With poppies we remember the soldiers that have died, with them we now have freedom, because they fought with pride. There they lie in Flanders Fields, where bright red poppies grow. In the war they fought for, and that we’ll always know. Freedom is never free.”

800 Years Of Irish Resistance

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There is a memorial garden to the history of Irish resistance at the entrance to the Athletic Grounds in Armagh. From left to right, the images presented here show:

“More than 800 years of Irish resistence” – a sword for the Norman invasion under Strongbow, a pike for the 1798 and 1803 rebellions, a bolt-action rifle for the Easter Rising of 1916, and an assault rifle for the Troubles;

Cumann Na mBan, Mairéad Farrell and republican women who made “the supreme sacrifice”;

The Proclamation, Provisional IRA and Na Fianna;

The dying Cú Chulainn and a plaque “in proud and loving memory of all republican volunteers, ex-POWs and the unsung heroes from this area who fought, suffered and died in the cause of Ireland’s freedom, with a quote from James Connolly: ‘If you strike at, imprison or kill us, out of prisons or graves will still evoke a spirit that will thwart you and perhaps raise a force that will destroy you! We defy you England! Do your worst!”;

“Remember Ireland’s hunger strikers – 22 men” – the ten 1981 hunger strikers and Thomas Ashe, Terence MacSwiney, Michael Fitzgerald, Joe Murphy, Joseph Whitty, Andy O’Sullivan, Denny Barry, Tony D’Arcy, Jack McNeela, Seán McCaughey, Michael Gaughan, Frank Stagg;

A stone “in loving memory of men, women and children murdered by British forces in Ireland.”

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