The main (Sınn Féın) Easter Rising commemoration in Belfast takes place today (Easter Sunday). A full list of commemorations over the holiday, including those hosted by anti-Agreement groups, can be found at Republican News. See also, for the IRSP/RSYM commemoration, To The People Of Ireland.
“Dé Domhnaıgh, 5ú Aıbreán, Comóradh Na Cásca Bhéal Feırste. Caınteoır: Deirdre Hargey MLA. Cruınnıgh ag Ascaıll [Ard] Na bhFeá 1.00 i.n., ag fágáıl ar bhuılle 1.30i.n. Cuımhnıgh ar Thírghráthóırí Marbha Na hÉıreann. Caıth Lıle Na Casca. Cumman Uaıgheann Na Laochra Gael.”
[Sunday, 5th April, Belfast Easter Commemoration. Speaker: Deirdre Hargey MLA. Assemble at Beech[mount] Avenue 1:00 p.m., departing at 1:30 p.m. precisely. Remember Ireland’s Dead Patriots. Wear an Easter Lily. Gaelic Heroes’ Grave Association (= National Graves Association).]
At the Felons’ Club, Falls Road, Andersonstown, west Belfast
“Welcome to Craigyhill, home of the world’s biggest bonfire.”
The board in the image below was mounted circa 2019 (replacing the controversial Craigyhill Provost Team board that showed a hooded gunman with a pistol). The community was already claiming that its annual bonfire was “Northern Ireland’s biggest”.
But the claim was expanded to the entire world with 2022’s bonfire, which was measured at 202.3 feet (see March 2023’s Welcome To Craigyhill). The builders took a break with the (July) 2023 bonfire but the 2024 pyre (not “2023”, as in the image above) was measured at 205 feet, 2.69 inches (Belfast Live).
“Millbrook remembers – they gave their all for our freedom.” Here is a new installation in the Millbrook area of/just outside Larne, celebrating and commemorating the sacrifice of locals who lost their lives while serving the British forces during the World Wars.
The Great War 1914-1918: “Be proud of the lads of Millbrook, who at the bugle call/put on the Country’s armour and rushed to duty’s call They have gone to beat the Kaiser, we are sure they will succeed,/To drive him out of Flanders, And Belgium shall be freed! Their names shall live in history, Their names we will adore,/And Ulster shall be proud of them, when they return once more.”
On the left are three medals: Pip, Squeak, and Wilfred (that is, the 1914 Star, for service in France or Belgium, the War (service) medal, and the Inter Allied Victory medal) (Identify Medals), with the ‘Dead Man’s Penny’ on the right.
The names on the headstone between the two World War panels are [from WWI] John Blair, David Linn Ritchie, Robert Erskine, Wesley Campbell, James Steele, Samuel McKay, Robert McFall, Thomas Kirkpatrick, Samuel George Mathers, Charles McNally, William John Kirkpatrick, Daniel McMichael, [from WWII] Cyril Cecil Whitley, William Magee. “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you – Deuteronomy 31:6”
Second World War 1939-1945: “Here inscribed the names of friends we knew, Young men with whom we often flew Scrambled to many angels high, They knew that they or friends might die Behind each name a story lies, of bravery in summer skies; Though many brave unwritten tales, were simply told in vapour trails Many now lie in sacred graves, and many rest beneath the waves Outnumbered every day they flew, Remembered here as just ‘The Few'”
The medals on the right are the Burma Star, Defence Medal, and the War Medal, with the RAF brass cap badge on the left.
Along the main road in Drumahoe Gardens, Millbrook, Larne.
This entry updates a similar entry from 2022 with images and close-ups of the now-faded red and orange paint in the mural on the back wall of the “36th (Ulster) Division Victoria Cross Memorial Garden”.
For close-ups of the board picturing the WWI VC winners, see The Dead We Honour Here. “‘Throughout the long years of struggle … the men of Ulster have proved how nobly they fight and die’ – King George V, 16th November, 1918”
St Leonard’s Crescent/old Newcastle Street, east Belfast
This is a pair of small boards at the corner of Balkan Street and Leeson Street, Divis, west Belfast.
Above, “Saoırse [freedom]” and “beır bua [seize victory]” and imagery of the four provinces and a lark in barbed wire are on top of the old Divis flats. The flats were built to replace the tightly-packed streets of the lower Falls. After the first three blocks were completed in 1969, there was a plan to have a mixture of flats all the way up to Dunville Park (“Phase 2” in this 30-minute BBC video on the flats, which also includes the story of its eventual demise.
Below, “For what died the sons of Róısín [Dubh]?” The Dogs of IRA D company, second battalion [Belfast brigade] are “unbowed” and “unbroken”.
“We salute all those who have fought, died and assisted in the fight for Irish freedom. Ar dheıs Dé go raıbh a n-anamacha. West Tyrone remembers.”
Above is a recent (2025-06) mural painted in Clady of IRA volunteers c. 1971 defending the bridge a stone’s throw outside the town, to prevent it from being blown up by the British Army. A history of the bridge, and the photograph which the mural reproduces, can be found at The Pensive Quill. The work of painting the mural and refreshing the window-boards of the building has been undertaken by the Joseph Plunkett 1916 Society Clady/Grebe (Fb).
The two monuments, to volunteers generally and Neal Lafferty (d. 1975) specifically (Fb), stand together at the junction with Cluney Gardens. There is also a memorial to James McPhelimy (d. 1988) on the other side of Urney Road, and one to Jim McGann (d. 1973) on the bridge.
Ceannasaíacht [sic Ceannasaíocht] Iarthar Thír Eoghaın – Cuımhníonn an Srath Bán ortha [sic orthu]. [West Tyrone leadership – Strabane remembers them]”. This large tarp replaces another one that used similar language – Cuımhníonn An Srath Bán Orthu Go Deo – but where that tarp remembered the dead of 1916, this one commemorates Sands and Guevara (who are also painted together just to the viewer’s right on a yard wall – see Revolutionaries) and the hooded gunmen of the Troubles-era armed struggle.
“The Lisbellaw community celebrates the coronation of his majesty King Charles III. God save the King.” Charles’s coronation was on May 6th, 2023, eight months after acceding to the throne upon the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. He turns 78 this year (2026).
This is a large printed board in the Brook Street, Lisbellaw, below the A4.
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.
