Paddy Duffy Collection

Our Only Crime Is Loyalty

2024-08-132024-11-14Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

These are the boards at the chip shop (formerly a Spar and before that a Mace) in the centre of the Mourneview estate, Lurgan.

Above, and in detail below, are the pieces from the front of the shop, in Pollock Drive. Anti-clockwise from bottom-left:

First: “Believe, we dare not boast,/Believe, we do not fear/We stand to pay the cost,/In all that men hold dear.//What answer from the North?/One Law, one Land, one Throne/If England drive us forth,/We shall not fall alone!” Kipling’s poem Ulster.

The first stanza also appears in a Belfast RHC mural, and other lines from the poem have been used elsewhere: We Perish If We Yield | The Terror, Threats, And Dread.

Second: YCV

Next (tall piece): A company, 1st battalion, Mid Ulster brigade UVF – Lurgan as well as Broxburn (outside Edinburgh) and Thornliebank (near Glasgow).

Next: PAF plus (out of frame in the wide shot) “When injustice becomes law resistance becomes duty.” The same panel was seen in Ballyclare, though for the 1st East Antrim battalion rather than the Mid Ulster brigade.

Above: A tribute to the Ulster Volunteers from the area: the 9th battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers joined the 108th brigade in the 36th (Ulster) Division; the 5th battalion joined the 31st brigade and the 10th (Irish) Division. This board goes back to (at least) 2011.

Finally (top left), a UDU/UDA board, to 1 company, D battalion, South Belfast. All of the remaining pieces are UVF/PAF.

Around the corner, in Mourne Road, a gallery of photographs of the Craigavon Protestant Boys (Fb) past and present, with a plaque in memory of Victor Stewart. “Our only crime is loyalty.”

In the adjacent Spelga Park: “Unbowed & unbroken – our only crime is loyalty – Mourneview/Gret estate bonfire” with an unusual combination of shamrock and Orange lily.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
T05400
T05393 T05394 T05395 T05396 T05397 T05398 T05399 T05402 T05403 T05404
T05401

Ard Mhacha Abú

2024-08-132024-11-14Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The people of Kilwilkie (Lurgan) supported the Armagh team in their (successful – RTÉ video) bid to win the All-Ireland senior football championship, repeating their former and only previous win in 2002 – see also Ard Mhacha (in north Belfast) and Ádh Mór Ard Mhacha (in Armagh) and (from last year) The Core Of Armagh.

Levin Road, Lurgan

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
T05409

North Armagh Remembers

2024-08-132024-10-04Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

North Armagh remembers both the centenary of the Easter Rising – in black and white in the background are (above) the seven signatories of the Proclamation, (bottom left) Cumann Na mBan (see the 2014 west Belfast mural) and (bottom right) the Irish Citizen Army (depicted by the painting The Birth Of The Irish Republic) – but also nineteen local volunteers and activists from the Troubles era: (anti-clockwise from left) Thomas Harte, Michael Crossey, Charles Agnew, Julie Dougan, John Francis Green, Terry Brady, David Kennedy, Peter Corrigan, Sheena Campbell, Sam Marshall, Eamonn McCann, Harry McCartney, JB O’Hagan, Sean McIlvenna, Eddie Dynes, Eugene Toman, Garvase McKerr, Sean Burns.

The emblems in the upper corners of those of Na Fıanna Éıreann and the Irish National Volunteers. The inclusion of the National Volunteers is unusual and perhaps a mistake: they were formed in 1914, when the Irish Volunteers split after Redmond urged Irishmen to join the British Army in the Great War; about 24,000 National Volunteers joined the 10th and 16th (alongside roughly 180,000 other Irishmen) (WP). The intended emblem might instead be that of the Irish Volunteers, which kept the name of the pre-WWI organisation but only a fraction of the volunteers, some of whom participated in the Easter Rising; their emblem is also a harp but with “IV” or “Irish Volunteers” or (for the Dublin brigade) the Fıanna Fáıl sunburst. (If you can clarify, please comment/get in touch.)

Taghnevan Drive, Lurgan

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
T05390

Portadown UDA

2024-08-132024-09-25Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

This is a vintage UDA mural in Moeran Park, in the Rectory area of Portadown, still in reasonable shape after more than a decade – compare this image with the 2011 image in the Peter Moloney collection.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
T05437

The Settlement Of The True Protestant Religion

2024-08-132025-03-04Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“In glorious memory of her majesty Queen Elizabeth II 1926-2022. I, Charles the third, by the grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of my other realms and territories, king, defender of the faith, do faithfully promise and swear that I shall inviolably maintain and preserve the settlement of the true Protestant religion. God save the King.”

Pollock Drive, Lurgan

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
T05392

Have Pride In Our Youth

2024-08-132024-09-06Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

These community murals were painted under the auspices of the Edgarstown Residents’ Association (Fb), which hosts a Drop-In, Kids’ Club, Evolve (NI World), Smile (ArmaghI), and PCBDT (Portadown Community-Based Detached Team) (NI World | NIHE). The sub-station was painted in March, 2022 (Fb) – in the early 2000s it bore a UVF mural (see D01333); the low wall reading “Welcome To Edgarstown” is from August of this year (2024).

West Street/Margaret Street and Union Street, Edgarstown, Portadown

Portadown Defenders

2024-08-132024-09-12Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Portadown Defenders flute band (Fb) – their annual parade through the centre of Portadown took place on August 16th (Fb).

Union St/Margaret St, Edgarstown, Portadown

My Brother Is Not A Criminal

2024-08-132024-09-08Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

IRA volunteer Raymond McCreesh, originally from Camlough, died on May 21st, 1981, after 61 days on hunger strike. “In proud and loving memory of ten brave Irish soldiers who died on hunger strike in 1981 for their five just demands. I gcuımhne ar ıobaırt [íobaırt] cróga na staılceoırí ocraıs 1981 ní dheánfar [dhéanfar] dearmad orthu.”

This is a new version of a long-standing board to McCreesh in Taghnevan Drive, Lurgan. For the previous (painted) version (from 2009) see M05408.

Portadown True Blues

2024-08-132024-09-18Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Two plaques have been added to the Portadown True Blues mural in Edgarstown, Portadown (as compared with the images from 2021). They read “In loving memory of Richard “Dickie” Craven. Fondly remembered by the Portadown True Blues F.B.” and “In loving memory of Mark “E.T.” Elliott. Fondly remembered by the Portadown True Blues F.B.” Craven died in at the end of July, 2021, (Fb) and Elliott also in 2021 (Fb).