Paddy Duffy Collection

The Missing Of The Somme

2025-10-112025-11-07Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“When you go home tell them of us and say, ‘For your tomorrow we gave our today’.” The Thiepval Memorial commemorates British and South African soldiers who died in the Somme valley and have no known grave. The Battle Of the Somme took place from July 1st to November 18th, 1916, but soldiers were in the area from July 1915 until the end of the war; the Germans attacked in the Somme in the spring of 1918 (Operation Michael) and a second Battle Of The Somme took place in late August, 1918, as part of the Allies’ Hundred Days Offensive.

The words are from an epitaph by John Maxwell Edwards in the Kohima War Cemetery, Nagaland, India.

Crebilly Road, Ballykeel 1, Ballymena

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Copyright © 2025 Paddy Duffy
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In The Service Of Our Country

2025-10-092025-11-15Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The upper Woodvale plaque “in memory of all those Protestants and members of the security forces who lost their lives in the greater Shankill area as a result of conflict” has sat unadorned since at least 2008 but now has a pair of boards to accompany it.

On the left, a reproduction of the “Faithful Unto Death” stained-glass window in the Museum of Orange Heritage in Schomberg House on the Cregagh Road (also reproduced in Newbuildings in 2022), along with the emblem of the Country Grand Orange Lodge Of Belfast (Fb).

On the right, a memorial to “all local residents whose lives were cruelly taken by Republican terrorists. Also those who selflessly gave their lives in the service of our country, and those who continue to do so.” (LOL “423” appears to be Banbridge Bible And Crown Defenders.)

Bray Street/Bray Close, Woodvale, west Belfast

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Bingham Lane Festival

2025-10-082025-11-15Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Here are the results of a paint-jam at Seacourt Prints (web) in Bangor at the end of September. The “peace” above is by Rob Hilken (web); the artists for the other pieces are noted beneath the individual photos.

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Urban Wildlife

2025-10-082026-02-01Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Here are a kingfisher, heron, badger, owl, squirrel, fox, and hedgehog by Glen Molloy (ig) in Knockwood Park, Clarawood, east Belfast. The closest place one might be able to see any of these creatures – particularly herons – is in the Marsh-Wiggle pond, along the Connswater (East Side Greenways).

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Fáılte Go Camloch

2025-10-052025-10-22Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

This mural is on the pump-house at the junction of Sturgan Brae and Newtown Rd, west of Camlough town and at the northern end of the “cam loch” [crooked lake]. The lake and the junction are visible in the centre-left, with the village itself just below the “h”. The map is between (to the left) the Celtic cross in the republican plot in St Malachy’s and a turn-of-the-century (1900) village water-pump (NBHS) and (to the right) the ruins of St Jude’s church (Christ Church).

The referent of “established 1610” is not clear. “ChS” in the lower right is perhaps “Camlough Heritage Society” (BBC).

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My Brother Is Not A Criminal

2025-10-052025-12-06Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The brothers in question are Raymond and Brian McCreesh, from Camlough, Co Armagh. Raymond is third in the list of the ten deceased 1981 hunger strikers on the large stone at the top of the slope: “In memory of the volunteers who died on hunger strike in H-Blocks 1981.” The quote along the bottom reads, “H-Block is rock that the British monster shall perish upon for we in H-Block stand upon the unconquerable rock of the Irish socialist republic – Bobby Sands”; the source of the quote in unknown.

The lower stone reads “These men made the supreme sacrifice for their country by dying on hunger strike from 1917 to 1976: 1917 Thomas Ashe; 1920 Michael Fitzgerald, Joseph Murphy, Terence McSwiney; 1923 Joseph Whitty, Denis Barry, Andy Sullivan; 1940 Tony Darcy, Sean McNeela; 1946 Sean McCaughey; 1974 Michael Gaughan; 1976 Frank Stagg. “It is not those who can inflict the most but those that can suffer the most who will conquer” – Terence McSwiney.”

The final image is a call from “Independent Republicans Armagh [Fb]” to commemorate Dessie Grew and Martin McCaughey, who were riddled with bullets fired by the SAS as they moved weapons near Moy, Co Tyrone, in 1990 (RN | youtube).

Ford’s Cross, New Road, Silverbridge

Glóıre/Glory

2025-10-052025-11-29Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

This is the republican memorial in the centre of Crossmaglen (in Cearnóg An Chaırdıneıl Ó Fıaıch). The monument was produced by Yann Goulet (1979), the same sculptor who did the memorial at Ballyseedy (1959), and like that work, this one depicts a young man striding forward in anger and anguish, though in this case he arises from a phoenix.

“Glóıre daoıḃse a laoċra uṁla cróga a d’ḟulaıng le fonn ar ṁéad ḃur ngrá fıal ar Ṡaoırse na hÉıreann.” “Glory to you all praised and humble heroes who have willingly suffered for your unselfish and passionate love of Irish freedom.”

To the right of the statue (in the corner of the car-park) is a plaque marking “the spot where the rosary was said each night during the 1981 hunger strike”, “unveiled by formed hunger striker Paddy Quinn on 6th May 2006”.

The Martyrs Will Haunt Us Forever

2025-10-052025-11-29Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“We must take no steps backward, our steps must [or: will] be onward, for if we don’t, the [ghosts of the] martyrs that died for you, for me, for this country will haunt us forever [or: for eternity].” The words of Máıre Drumm (from an anti-internment rally in Dunville Park on 10th August, 1975 – RN p. 4) appear below a roll of honour for the IRA’s South Armagh Brigade. The list of volunteers is included below; in 1976 Drumm herself was shot dead in her bed by the RHC in the Mater hospital where she was a patient (WP) – she was Vice President of Sınn Féın at the time.

Michael McVerry, Sean Boyle, Francis Jordan, Gerry McKiernan, James Lochrie, Sean Campbell, Peter Cleary, Seamus Harvey, Liam Farrelly, Peadar McElvanna, Kevin Caherty, Raymond McCrees, Brendan Moley, Brendan Burns, Fergal Caraher, Packie Duffy, Eugene Martin, Tim Daly, Malachy Watters, Gary Toner, Keith Rogers, Francie Caraher, Gerald Fearon, Pat Lynch

Twelve more of the martyrs – the Troubles-era hunger-strikes – are on the stone across the street (for a close-up, see the Peter Moloney Collection).