The IRSP/RSYM will commemorate the Easter Rising with wreath-laying in Derry (IRSP Derry Fb | RSYM Fb) on Saturday and a parade in Belfast on Easter Sunday (IRSP Lower Falls Fb). These posters of the seven signatories to the Proclamation are on the Falls Road, at Waterford Street/Dunville Park, west Belfast.
Costello House, home of the IRSP and site of these two new boards, is named after Seamus Costello (b. 1939), who fought for the IRA during the Border Campaign and was interned in the Curragh for two years. He stayed with the Officials during the split, but was driven out in 1974 and formed the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) and the INLA. He was shot and killed in 1977 (WP).
Costello appears alongside one of his successors as INLA leader, Gino Gallagher, for whom see the recent Gino Gallagher, Chief Of Staff.
These two Saoradh (web) boards are at the roundabout on Camlough Road, Newry. The one above shows a vintage mural from nearby Carnagat Road that goes back to (at least) 1994 – the version painted in 2000 can be seen in the Peter Moloney Collection.
The other board reads “Salute the men and women of violence”, among whom are the seven signatories to the 1916 Proclamation, the IRA of the Troubles era – illustrated by Colman Doyle’s famous ?1973? (staged) photograph of a female IRA volunteer with AR-18 – and the post-Agreement groups (such as the New IRA) – illustrated by a home-made RPG (shown in Resistance).
This memorial board to Gino Gallagher was mounted the day before the thirtieth anniversary of his death in 1996, possibly by former colleagues (Irish Times | Republican News). On the 31st, a colour party paraded to Gallagher’s grave in Milltown (youtube).
“Gino Gallagher, chief of staff, 30th anniversary, 30th January 1996. Irish National Liberation Army/INLA. “Finally, as we lay this volunteer and comrade into the soft green soil of his native land, remember him each time you gaze into the stars and see there etched across the sky the plough and the stars!””
This memorial for Glen “Spacer” Branagh, launched on the twentieth anniversary of his death in 2021, is at the junction of Canning Street and Orchard Street, north Belfast.
For information and the earlier plaque on N Queen St, see Forever Young.
These faded Armagh murals have the titles “UVF Gun-Smuggler 1913” and “Arms Training 1913”.
The gun-smuggling mural features not the 1914 gun-running on Clyde Valley – the ship that brought in the weapons and ammunition into Larne – but a motor-car. There was earlier gun-running or bulk gun-purchasing – 175 rifles were bought from Harrods by the Earl Of Lanesborough and sent to Enniskillen (Balaclava Street) and 500 rifles were brought from Manchester in August 1913 (Irish Bayonets). (See also History Ireland.) These perhaps used automobiles for distribution, and the Larne gun-running is described as the first time that the horseless carriage was used in a military operation – there were about 350 vehicles in the “Motor Car Corps” (Angelsey p. 3).
The location of the car, and of the ‘arms training’ in the second mural, are unknown. Here is a 1914 image (Getty) showing tents and a single machine-gun at Ballywalter. The sources of both paintings are unknown.
This entry updates 2024’s Here Dead We Lie – the plaque to Boyle and Somerville remains as before (it was originally mounted in 2005) but all three of the boards have been updated. The two on the extremes have the same content as before, while the central board marks the “50th anniversary” of the death of “Volunteer Harris Boyle”, “eternally remembered by the officers and volunteers of Mid-Ulster UVF”. Both Boyle and Somerville were members of both the UDR and UVF; they were “killed in action” when the bomb they were planting on the minibus of the Miami Showband went off prematurely. A parade in Boye’s memory took place in Portadown (BBC). Surviving Showband members and their sympathisers also marked the anniversary – on July 31st, 2025 – with a service at the spot of the attack (BBC).
The boards are at the junction of Gloucester Avenue and Princess Way in Portadown – Boyle was from the Killicomaine estate; Somerville is individually commemorated in Moygashel.
This board with portraits of Marian Price and Martin Corey goes back to 2013 (and perhaps earlier than that). It remains on display in the Obins Street area of Portadown, even though Price was released in 2013 and Corey in January 2014.
This entry updates 2023’s John McMichael, with close-ups of the smaller boards, in the apex and to either side on the main board, as well as of the stone to Ray Smallwoods, which reads, “In proud memory of Ray Smallwoods (murdered by the enemies of Ulster 11th July 1994) and all our fallen comrades. [For The Fallen] Erected by officers and volunteers of Old Warren A Coy.” Smallwoods was killed by the IRA in the garden of his home in Donard Drive, Lisburn (WP).
Anti-Agreement armed group Óglaıgh Na hÉıreann split in 2024 (BelTel) with the larger faction following Tony McDonnell (BelTel). Death threats against seven members from the smaller faction (under Sean O’Reilly) were issued and attacks were made in February (BBC), March (Irish News/reddit), and July (Irish News).
The signage seen here is in the New Lodge in north Belfast. On the left are the names of the ten deceased 1981 hunger-strikers, on the right, armed and masked volunteers pose against a background of a vintage picture of the flats (from Getty Images – BBC).