East Belfast Volunteers

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

This mural at the mouth of Canada Street commemorates The main mural features insignia of more than thirty units of types from the 8th Batt. RIR, ranging from machine gunners to vets.

The plaques on the wall to the left celebrate the nine Victoria Crosses won by members of the 36th (Ulster) Division “For valour”: Cather, McFadzean, Bell, Quigg, Emerson, De Wind, Seaman, Knox, and Harvey; the final plaque is McCrae’s In Flanders’ Fields. 

Canada Street, east Belfast

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2008 Paddy Duffy
[T00432] T00632

The Untold Story

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“In August 1971 many Protestants fled their homes as the IRA launched a bitter sectarian attack on Protestant communities throughout Belfast. The loyal people of Liverpool held out the hand of friendship in our hour of need up to 2000 terrified women and children escaped from burning homes to live in the safety of Liverpool. That act of friendship by the people of Liverpool will never be forgotten. Liverpool – Belfast a bond never broken. No surrender ” With newspaper reports by the Belfast Telegraph and Liverpool Echo. Sponsored by the East Belfast Historical And Cultural Society.

Canada Street, east Belfast

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2008 Paddy Duffy
T00486

The People’s Army

Extramural Activity1 Comment

“The arming, the training, and the sacrifice of The People’s Army.” The arming of the Ulster Volunteers (top left) comes from the guns smuggled into Larne on the Clyde Valley. The training of the Ulster Volunteers shown (top right) is probably at Ballywalter. The sacrifice (bottom) is the 36th (Ulster) Division going over the top in James Beadle’s painting ‘Charge of the 36th (Ulster) Division, Somme, 1st July 1916’.

Inverary Drive, east Belfast

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2008 Paddy Duffy
T00442

James Magennis

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

VC (Victoria Cross) recipient James Magennis was the only person from Northern Ireland awarded the VC for action during WWII (WP). Although the mural is in loyalist Tullycarnet, Magennis was a Catholic, born in west Belfast, though he lived for a time in Castlereagh.

The mural takes the place of an Eddie The Trooper mural (see Eddie’s Visual History page). There is a large memorial to Magennis in the grounds of Belfast City Hall.

Painted by Kenny Blair and produced with help from the Tullycarnet Action Group Initiative Trust (TAGIT).

King’s Road, Tullycarnet, Dundonald

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2008 Paddy Duffy
T00429

The New Lodge Six

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“Time for the truth”. Two of the New Lodge Six (James Sloan, James McCann) were killed by the UDA outside a bar and four (Tony Campbell, Ambrose Hardy, Brendan Maguire, John Loughran) among the crowd that gathered by British Army snipers from their positions on top of the flats, using night-vision sights, February 3rd-4th, 1973.

Donore Court, New Lodge, north Belfast

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2008 Paddy Duffy
T00424

RIC Murder Gang

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

One RIC member was killed and another wounded outside the Beehive Bar in a shoot-out with IRA men in September 1920. In reprisal, County Inspector Harrison and his men killed Vol. Ned Trodden, Vol. Sean Gaynor, and Sean McFadden (Rısteard Ó Murchú). The gang, under Detective Inspector Nixon, would go on to kill more Catholics in 1921 and in 1922 commit the McMahon killings and the Arnon Street killings, in each of which 6 people died.

Northumberland Street, west Belfast

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2008 Paddy Duffy
T00405 [T00406]

Belfast Dockers And Carters Strike 1907

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“Not as Catholics or Protestants, not as nationalists or unionists, but as Belfast workers standing together.” For the 100th anniversary of the strike by dockers and carters in Belfast, this large board was painted by Fra Maher and Rısteard Ó Murchú. It was launched on August 11th without the title across the top (youtube).

Leaders Boyd and Larkin are portrayed in the middle. The second panel shows speakers (including Larkin) on a platform (O’Hare); the third shows an RIC guard of blackleg workers – about 70% of the force mutinied and the fifth panel shows dismissed RIC constable William Barrett being carried through Belfast; the sixth shows the Cameron Highlanders being stoned by picketers (History Ireland). Margaret Lennon and Charles McMullan, two Catholic victims of British soldiers, shot during protests, are portrayed in the bottom right.

Northumberland Street, Belfast

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2008 Paddy Duffy
T00388 T00390 T00391 T00389