The uniforms of the graveside mourners are from WWI and the image on each side is JP Beadle’s Attack Of The Ulster Division (Royal Irish) at the Battle Of The Somme in 1916, but the names on the pillar (in the image immediately below) are from the modern UVF. Little information about any of those listed is available on-line, but ten of those listed were also on a plaque in Abbot Crescent, which was similarly in front of a 36th Division mural.
Here is a gallery of the metal-works which are inserted (c. 2020) into the fencing along the front of the 1st Shankill Somme Association’s ‘Garden Of Reflection’, and with the (replacement) plaques added to the stone when the wall and gate-columns were rebuilt in 2021.
The Andrew Mason memorial garden in Hillhall, Lisburn, has been revamped, with a blue background on the gable wall, the removal of two small bronze plaques below the board (for which see the Peter Moloney Collection), a rebuilt lower wall to which two new plaques have been added, and an expanded “garden” with new fencing.
The plaque on the left a new version of the plaque to John McMichael, Raymond Smallwoods, Jim Guiney, and Mason – Glenn Clarke has been added. (Compare with 2023.)
“Sons of Ulster do not be anxious for we will never forget you as long as the sun shines and the wind blows and the rain falls and the rivers of Ulster flow to the sea. Always remembered by volunteers from Hillhall C Company.”
The entirely new plaque on the right reads: “Edinburgh Company, Lisburn Battalion, South Belfast Brigade, Ulster Defence Association – ‘Let us gather, hearts entwined,/To celebrate a life that once did shine,/Our dear comrades, a soul so bright,/A testament to loyalty and highland light,/Their spirit lingers, a gentle breeze,/A life well lived, forever at ease.'” “Edinburgh Company” perhaps indicates the source of the funds that made the modifications possible.
There are new boards (and a black background) for the memorial plaque to Harris Boyle and Wesley Somerville in Portadown.
On the left: “The onus on future generations is to keep our country British, to defend our people from republican enemies and to remember with pride those who sacrificed their tomorrows for our today. UVF.”
And on the right, the words of A.E. Housman’s 1936 poem: “Here dead we lie because we did not choose/To live and shame the land from which we sprung.//Life to be sure, is nothing much to lose,/But young men think it is, and we were young.”
Despite the WWI references and imagery, the two people commemorated belong to the Troubles era. Boyle and Somerville were UDR soldiers and UVF volunteers. They were “killed in action” when the bomb they were planting on the minibus of the Miami Showband went off prematurely. Of the pair, only Somerville’s arm with its “UVF Portadown” tattoo remained identifiable. Three members of the band were also killed in the attack. (WP) The plaque goes back to (at least) 2008: Boyle & Somerville.
This is a new UDA board in Monkstown, Newtownabbey. At the top we see the emblems of “Loyalist Prisoners’ Aid” and “Ulster Defence Union” alongside the familiar UYM and UFF emblems. For the UDU, see the entry on one its earliest appearances, in a 2009 mural in the lower Shankill. Loyalist Prisoners’ Aid is a fundraising album of UDA songs (now freely available at SoNIC). (Also seen: an LPA flag flying in Newtownards in 2018.)
The photograph at the bottom (close-up below) shows the UDA marching in 1972 in North Street, Belfast city centre. (Of the buildings on the left, only the brick building housing “Castle jewellers” remains standing – Street View.) The original photograph can be seen at Alamy.
“This memorial is dedicated to the memory of the officers and members of our organisation who were murdered by the enemies of Ulster and to those who paid the supreme sacrifice whilst on active service during the present conflict. Quis separabit.” Four of the 1st battalion dead are named in the mural across Devenish Drive – see Monkstown UDA.
Ards Park, Monkstown, Newtownabbey. For the previous mural in this spot, see Murals Irlande Du Nord.
This entry covers two steps in the development of the WWI memorial garden on Donegall Road at Barrington Gardens.
Previously, there were two boards on the gable wall (see The Road To The Somme), of the Covenant signing and soldiers in the trenches of WWI (a copy of a Carol Graham painting).
The images below (from November, 2023) show the latter board absent as the brick walls are being built and a roll of honour to locals who lost their lives being installed.
The images in the top half of the entry (from October 2024) show the gable and side-wall painted blue, with a large board showing the Ulster Memorial Tower in Thiepval, below a red hand, and (on the side-wall) the crests of the YCV, Inniskilling Fusiliers, Royal Irish Fusiliers, and the Royal Irish Rifles.
“In memory of Brigadier Billy Wright (King Rat). ‘Greater love hath no man than this: that a man lay down his life for his friends.’ – John Ch15v13. Gone but not forgotten.” Wright became alienated from the UVF due to his opposition to the ceasefire and peace process (in 1994) and was finally kicked out in 1996 during the Drumcree dispute. The Portadown UVF under Wright formed the LVF [Loyalist Volunteer Force]; another LVF unit was formed in Ballycraigy, where this memorial can be found. (BBC | WP) Silhouetted graveside mourners have been added, compared to the 2009 image in the Peter Moloney collection.
IRA volunteer Raymond McCreesh, originally from Camlough, died on May 21st, 1981, after 61 days on hunger strike. “In proud and loving memory of ten brave Irish soldiers who died on hunger strike in 1981 for their five just demands. I gcuımhne ar ıobaırt [íobaırt] cróga na staılceoırí ocraıs 1981 ní dheánfar [dhéanfar] dearmad orthu.”
This is a new version of a long-standing board to McCreesh in Taghnevan Drive, Lurgan. For the previous (painted) version (from 2009) see M05408.
Two plaques have been added to the Portadown True Blues mural in Edgarstown, Portadown (as compared with the images from 2021). They read “In loving memory of Richard “Dickie” Craven. Fondly remembered by the Portadown True Blues F.B.” and “In loving memory of Mark “E.T.” Elliott. Fondly remembered by the Portadown True Blues F.B.” Craven died in at the end of July, 2021, (Fb) and Elliott also in 2021 (Fb).
On July 1st, 1916, the Battle of Albert began, the first of many battles in what is known collectively as the Battle of the Somme. Soldiers from the 36th (Ulster) Brigade went “over the top” at 7:28 a.m. By the end of the day, more than nineteen thousand British soldiers were dead, five thousand from the 36th.
Below the main panel, which shows combat at close quarters, are the words of Wilfrid Spender: “I am not an Ulsterman but yesterday, the 1st. July, as I followed their amazing attack, I felt that I would rather be an Ulsterman than anything else in the world … the Ulster Volunteer Force, from which the Division was made, has won a name that equals any in history.”
Paddy Duffy Collection 