Paddy Duffy Collection

Here is a gallery of the one-storey gables along the Newtownards Road, east Belfast, that is being called “Freedom Corner”, perhaps in imitation of Free Derry Corner (Visual History).

The two low walls between the first-and-second and third-and-fourth gables are blank except for small stencils reading “Send our prisoners home” (for a close-up on shutters on the other side of the street, see the Peter Moloney Collection). The issue of POWs is a shared concern of loyalists and republicans in the (public) discussion surrounding the ceasefire and the peace process and these stencils are from 1994 or 1995. The rest of the pieces date back to 1991 (or 1992).

First is a UFF and LPA/LPOW pair. On the side-wall “Their only crime is loyalty – we forget them not”. The main wall shows a hooded volunteer and rifle, with the “U” of “UFF” wrapped in barbed wire. (The words “East Belfast Brigade” would later be added in the middle.) The quote is modelled on the Declaration of Arbroath: “For as long as one hundred of us remain alive we shall never in any way consent to submit to the rule of the Irish, for it is not for glory we fight but for freedom alone which no man loses but with his life.” (Originally, “for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom – for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.”)

The second gable shows two figures from “Ulster’s past defenders”, the B Specials and the Ulster Defence Regiment. The UDR replaced the Specials in 1970 but in 1992 was amalgamated with the Royal Irish Rangers to become the Royal Irish Regiment. Although seven battalions of the new RIR were permanently based in Northern Ireland, the mural asks “Who will defend Ulster now?” (The answer is on the next gable.)

For the low wall in the middle, see D00391. 

The third gable makes Cú Chulaınn (Visual History) – the “ancient defender of Ulster from Irish attacks over 2000 years ago” – a precursor of the UDA’s East Belfast Brigade, “Ulsters present day defenders”. The volunteer is – unusually – unmasked; it might be Ian Adamson (a civilian, but here given paramilitary gear) the UUP politician and proponent of the hypothesis that north-east Ulster was settled by settlers from Scotland – the Cruthin – who were at war with the Irish Gaels and that the Táın describes part of this conflict, with Cú Chulaınn the hero of Ulster single-handedly holding off the invaders from Connacht (WP).

This is a repainting of a 1992 mural (see M00959) and the main difference is that the shield was previously decorated with an Ulster Banner, whereas it is here decorated with the flag of the independent Northern Ireland proposed in the UDA’s policy document Common Sense, a St Patrick’s cross on a blue background with six-pointed star and red hand.

Fourth: Young Newton was a “tartan” youth gang in the early 1970s whose members joined the nascent “UYM” [Ulster Young Militants] circa 1974. The Young Newton were one of many tartan groups that joined the UYM/UDA, though the nearby Woodstock Tartan joined the Red Hand Commando.

The columns on either side are entwined with ribbons/banners reading “Our civil and religious / liberties we will maintain”, which is a paraphrase of King William III, who proclaimed as he landed in England in 1865, (in French) “the liberties of England and the Protestant religion I will maintain.”

There is a piece of “UVF” graffiti over the flag on the left. Again (as with the third gable), the flag is the flag for the independent Northern Ireland.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 1995 Paddy Duffy
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