cultural

Portadown Defenders Flute Band

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“Portadown Defenders flute band formed in Levaghery Orange Hall, Killycomain, 23rd Sept 1971. From strength to strength, the band remains an institution ingrained in history, that has stood for over 50 years. Simply the best.”

Portadown Defenders flute band (Fb) unveiled this new installation on April 6th (Fb). The band also has a board in Union Street. The the lion and the unicorn (above) are from the UK coat of arms

Princess Way/Gloucester Street, Portadown

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Monkstown YCV

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This entry updates Four Lads Had A Dream, which showed seven boards on the low wall opposite the Monkstown social club. Three more boards have been added to the right-hand end of the wall. One (above) has a gallery of photographs from the history of the Monkstown YCV flute band (Fb) “established 1974”, the second gives the lyrics to a song by Jim English, which was written for the band’s “50th anniversary battlefield tour” (Fb), photos from which are shown in the third panel.

“So now we’ll toast to those four young men from back in ’74/Did they think their dreams would still live on for 50 years and more/So raise a glass to those four young men and the dream they had made/To name the band in memory of the YCV brigade.”

Cloyne Crescent, Monkstown, Newtownabbey

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Tullycarnet Flute Band

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This post updates an entry from January last year (2023) (Remembered As Of Yesterday) which showed the vandalised mural to the Tullycarnet flute band. It went for at least a year without being repaired but has now been repainted with a new central image showing instruments in three panels.

Melfort Drive/Lochinver Drive, Tullycarnet, Dundonald.

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John And Rab

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Cloughfern Young Conquerors flute band (Fb – warning: copious use of images of Eddie The Trooper) was founded in 1973, the same year as the UDA began using the name “UFF”. “John” and “Rab” on the arms of the emblem above are John “Grugg” Gregg (also known as ‘The Reaper’) and Rab Carson of the UDA’s Southeast Antrim brigade. The pair were killed together in 2003 by the lower Shankill (West Belfast C company) UDA. (See also Gregg & Carson for another local tribute.)

The gentleman in the panel on the right is “The General”; he celebrated a birthday in July of this year (2024) (Fb) and so is perhaps not (as this board might suggest) another of the “absent friends” held in “glorious memory”.

See also: 50 Years Unbroken and CYC 50th– celebrations from 2023 of the band’s fiftieth anniversary.

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Union Bears

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The “Union Bears” are a Rangers FC “ultras” supporters club whose web page currently features the giant tifo – “sign” or “banner” is too small a word, so the Italian word is used – unveiled at various games. This much smaller display (above) is on an electrical box on the Doagh Road next to the Iceland at the eastern edge of the Rathcoole estate.

For the Sons Of KAI flute band sticker, see Kai Johansen’s Bar | Sons Of KAI | Four Lads Had A Dream.

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Whitehead Temperance

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Benjamin West painted The Battle Of The Boyne in 1778 and his composition – with William moving from left to right on a white horse and Marshal Schomberg dying in the bottom-right corner – has become the standard representation in loyalist culture, perhaps due to versions of it appearing on the covers of songbooks for the Orange Order and the Apprentice Boys soon after (Belinda Loftus 1982 Images In Conflict). It appears here on the wall of Whitehead Orange Hall, along with a board connecting service by Irish soldiers in British forces in WWI and Afghanistan (see previously: The Sacrifice Remains the Same in east Belfast).

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Ballycraigy Bonfire

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The Ballycraigy bonfire from 2021 (Fb) is at the centre of a new free-standing board that was added this (2024) summer. Around the outside, the rose and thistle are joined by the orange lily and the poppy, rather than the shamrock and daffodil of the “four nations”.

For the similar board on the gable wall in the distance, see Lead The Way.

On the green at Hollowburn Road, in the Ballycraigy estate, Antrim.

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Olympic Rings

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Ireland’s first-ever gymnastics gold medal was won at the recent (2024) summer Olympics by Rhys McClenaghan, competing on the pommel horse (Reuters | Irish Times). The new art celebrating his victory is by Cha Cha (ig) in Meetinghouse Lane, in his home town of Newtownards. McClenaghan was also featured in a 2021 wall-painting in Dublin (Dublin Gazette).

Previous Olympic medalists: Michael Conlan in west Belfast | Boxing Champions in Ardoyne.

Meetinghouse Lane, Newtownards, site of a 2021 paint jam.

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