printed board/placard – Page 48 – Paddy Duffy Collection

Lost Volunteers

2022-09-252024-07-24Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

This board commemorates the action and deaths of the British Army’s 36th (Ulster) Division in World War I’s Battle Of The Somme, of which Captain Wilfrid Spender wrote, “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. My pen cannot describe adequately the hundreds of heroic acts that I witnessed … The Ulster Volunteer Force, from which the division was made, has won a name which equals any in history.”

For images of the launch (on 2016-03-08) see Belfast Live.

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They Said We’d Never Last

2022-09-252026-04-17Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Ronnie’s hardware shop in east Belfast, vacant for many years and the site of Our Brave Defenders, was finally torn down last year and a pocket park created with murals commemorating east Belfast volunteers who died in the Great War and the UVF Regimental Band (tw), this year celebrating its 50 anniversary (video of the launch).

See previously: 40th anniversary banner at the same spot (next to the Belvoir Bar at the old Newcastle Street in east Belfast).

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A Thought Is Not A lot

2022-09-252025-07-11Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Tower Street in east Belfast is (unofficially) renamed “Ulster Tower Street” to complement the mural at the corner with Beechfield Street. The work was created in 2016 and is now (2022) showing its age. The image of the Ulster Tower at Thiepval, in the centre of the main panel, is fading, though the list of battles in which the 36th (Ulster) Division participated remain legible.

There is also some fading and peeling paint on both the main wall and side-wall. The smaller board on the side-wall features a poem from local children: “The Great War took a lot of Pray/It’s hard to say w[h]ere all these brave men lay/A lot of souls still waiting to be found/Buried deep below the ground.//In the fields w[h]ere the bright red poppies grow/Stood men so brave of fight and foe/Some men so young they just didn’t know/A journey with friends they all wanted to go.// When they got there what a different tail [tale] they did tell/Many letters home describing it as hell/Young men put to front to fight/We can only imagine the awful sight.//Fighting beside their mate to keep Britain great/And we still remember them till this date/Nearly one hundred years on/A lot of these great men have gone/Forget them we will not as a thought is not a lot.”

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East Belfast UVF

2022-09-252025-07-25Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Four members of the East Belfast UVF are commemorated by a new mural in Fraser Pass, Ballymacarrett. The four named are: Robert Seymour, shot dead by the PIRA in 1988; James Cordner and Joseph Long, who were killed in a premature explosion in 1977; Robert Bennett, killed by the British Army during a riot in 1973.

In a previous version of the mural, Seymour and Long were featured alongside Crawford and Craig (of the Home Rule era) – see God, Give Us Men! (which also includes a close-up of the small plaque embedded in the front wall).

These same four are commemorated in the controversial 2013 mural featured in Years Of Sacrifice.

In-progress image:

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The Dead We Honour Here

2022-09-252024-07-20Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“The dead we honour here made the noble sacrifice for a cause that should never be forgotten.” A new board has been added to the memorial to the Ulster Volunteers on the Newtownards Road at St Leonard’s Crescent (the old Newcastle Street) over the bricked-up windows of the Belvoir Bar (see previously Not For Sale). The annual parade of the Belvoir Somme Association took place at the end of September (youtube)

The portrait of Carson was previously on the corner of Welland Street. The UVF Band mural is to the right of the memorial: see The Great War and They Said We’d Never Last.

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Ulster’s VC Heroes david nelson ernest wright alexander william mcfadzean edmund de win richard annesley west hugh colvin james somers jams duffy robert morrow edward barry stewart bingham thomas hughes robert hill hanna robert quigg john spencer dunville eric norman frankland bell james crichton geoffrey st. george shillington cather james anson otho brooke john alexander sinton dedicated to the women of east belfast that served in wwi and wwii

In Defence Of The Woodvale

2022-09-182024-07-22Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The end wall of Columbia Street in the Woodvale was knocked down, taking with it a former Duke Elliott/UDA mural, which was then replaced with boards (rather than murals) commemorating the history of the UDA and Elliott. Elliott lived one street over, in Leopold Street (WP). He was killed in 1972, at age 28, in a dispute with other UDA members.

Ohio St

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Shankill Star

2022-09-182024-07-22Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

This memorial to Brian Robinson (unveiled March 2, 2013) was sponsored by the Shankill Star Flute Band, in Disraeli Street – where Robinson grew up – and is replete with images from the first World War such as soldiers (both British and German), trenches and poppies.

Robinson was killed on 2 Sept., 1989 by an army undercover unit moments after he had shot and killed a Catholic named Patrick McKenna (WP). This is the second mural on the street to Robinson. The piece is not paint, but printed laminate, which is now cracking and peeling.

Invictus

2022-09-182024-07-22Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

This printed mural in the Woodvale area of west Belfast was officially launched on Saturday, June 3rd, 2017. It celebrates the creation of the Woodvale Defence Association as “Defenders of our community since 1969” which in 1971 merged with other associations to form the UDA, whose youth wing is the UYM (lower middle, “terrae filius” = “sons of the soil”) and which uses “UFF” (upper left, “feriens ego” = “attack to defend”) as a cover for military operation. The final emblem is of the LPA (Loyalist Prisoners’ Association, “quis separabit” = “none shall separate us”). The mural replaced by this one is in the bottom left, while the bottom right contains an image of Long Kesh in 1979. The main photograph is of a 1972 march on the Shankill.

Third-Class Citizens

2022-09-182024-07-22Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Hugh Smyth OBE was born in the Woodvale area and represented the upper Shankill as an Independent Unionist and then a Progressive Unionist in Belfast City Council for forty-one years, until the year before his death in May 2014, including a term as Lord mayor in 1994-1995 – he is pictured in the main image (above) in his mayoral robes.

The portrait on the right (shown solo below) was taken by Bobbie Hanvey and is kept in a Boston College archive; more from the archive of 50,000 images can be seen at BC.edu and on Flickr.

As the quote (shown in the final image below) indicates, his politics were oriented towards the working class: “Historically, Unionist politicians fed their electorate the myth that they were first class citizens… and without question people believed them. Historically, Republican/Nationalist politicians fed their electorate the myth that they were second class citizens… and without question the people believed them. In reality, the truth of the matter was that we all, Protestant and Catholic, were third class citizen, and none of us realised it!” The board was officially launched on June 19th, 2014.

Replaces 90 Years Of Resistance.

IRA – Sinn Fein – ISIS

2022-09-182025-10-09Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

A gallery of scenes from IRA bombings surrounds the Bayardo memorial arch, the centre-piece of which are two images from the 2015 paris bombings (shown above). “IRA – Sinn Fein – ISIS no difference”. In an interview for the USA’s PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) the DUP’s Sammie Wilson said he agreed with the equivalence.

Alexander Minto Howell was killed outside the Bayardo bar by the British Army.