PUL

Memorial To The Missing

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2014-08-26 WeRemember+

Canadian physician John McCrae’s poem In Flanders Fields and the triple arches of the Thiepval memorial to the missing are featured in this Monkstown mural. It is McCrae’s poem that is thought to have given rise to the use of the poppy as a symbol of military remembrance (WP). A close-up of the right-hand side, showing the memorial, is below. The names of over 72,000 dead are inscribed on the memorial (WP | travelfranceonline).

“In Flanders fields the poppies blow/Between the crosses, row on row/That mark our place; and in the sky/The larks, still bravely singing, fly/Scarce heard amid the guns below.//We are the Dead. Short days ago/We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,/Loved and were loved, and now we lie/In Flanders fields//Take up our quarrel with the foe:/To you from failing hands we throw/The torch; be yours to hold it high./If ye break faith with us who die/We shall not sleep/Though poppies grow/In Flanders fields.”

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X02126 X02127 we remember 1914 1918 uvf ycv

Ulster Will Fight

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2014-08-18 LindsayCovenant+

“It is needful that we knit together as one man, each strengthening the other, and not holding back of counting the cost” – Ulster [Unionist] Council Resolution 1912. The Council met on September 23rd and 471,000 people signed the covenant (figures here) on or around the 28th – Ulster Day – led by Sir Edward Carson.

For another board featuring similar images, see Covenant Of Hearts. In the same row of boards: Anthem For Doomed Youth

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Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X02089 will be right we won’t have home rule just under half a million men women september 28, in protest at the home rule bill introduced by the british government in that same year sir edward carson was the first person to sign at belfast city hall londonderry protestant churches craigavon signers were all unionists against the establishment of an irish parliament in dublin own blood to show their faith and dedication to the covenant

Ballymacarrett Orange Hall

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Home to Ballymacarrett District LOL No. 6, Junior LOL District No 3, RAPC District No 6, RBDC No 4 District, Women’s District LOL No 2.

Seen in 2012 in Flags Flying.

Albertbridge Road, Belfast

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1st East Antrim Ballyduff

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2014-08-25 Ballyduff1stBattUVF+

UVF mural showing the flags and insignia of the UVF and YCV (Young Citizen Volunteers), Ballyduff/Glengormley 1st East Antrim Battalion, alongside the flags of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

Previously, nearby: Absent Friends | Another UVF 1st East Antrim Battalion – in Glengormley

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We Were Young

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2014-09-10 CCoyPoppies+

A. E. Housman’s 1919 short poem “Here dead we lie” is featured, together with the poppies that grew on the Western Front in WWI, in this UVF commemorative mural. The 36th (Ulster) Division is not mentioned specifically; the plaque on the right-hand side (which pre-dates the mural) lists the names of five UVF members killed in the 70s who are depicted in the mural just out of picture but seen below in a wide shot of both murals (and by itself in C Coy Street). For a similar connecting of the two Ulster Volunteer Forces, see 100 Years Apart, Armed & Ready, Years Of Sacrifice, and others. Another wide shot is given in C Coy Street, taken from the main road and shows that the fish-and-chip shop on the Shankill is called “A Salt And Battered”.

“Here dead we lie, because we did not choose,
to live and shame the land, from which we sprung.
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose,
but young men think it is, and we were young.”

2014-09-10 CCoyWide+

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X02177 X02178 recognition appreciation remembrance  for god and ulster 1st battalion belfast brigade “c” company ulster volunteer force killed in action mcintyre 19-5-73 wadsworth 11-4-75 chapman 12-6-75 mcgregor 12-6-75 hannah 21-6-78 they shall not grow old as we that are left grow old age shall not weary them nor the years condemn at the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them in our hearts forever

100 Years Apart

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2014-08-09 DonegallPass2013+

Visible from the Ormeau Road, this large union flag greets visitors to Donegall Pass in the south of the city. It asserts the presence of the UVF and connects the original Ulster Volunteer Force of 1913 to the present-day group one hundred years later: the aim of the original UVF was to resist the impending rule by Catholics under Home Rule.

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Work Organises Life

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14 05 06 SouthWorking+

Here are two panels from the Donegall Road bridge at Roden Street both concerned with working life in the area in years gone by. The (uncredited) words at the bottom of the first board come from a Bill Clinton speech. At greater length, it goes “I do not believe we can repair the basic fabric of society until people who are willing to work have work. Work organizes life. It gives structure and discipline to life. It gives meaning and self-esteem to people who are parents. It gives a role model to children …”

The second features two stanzas from a poem called here “The Weaver’s Prayer” but also known as “The Master Weaver”, “The Weaver”, and “Just A Weaver”, and commonly though not unanimously attributed to one Benjamin Malacia Franklin in the 1940s; it is here said to have been penned by a “female Ulster weaver in 1922”: “Not ’til the loom is silent, and the shuttles cease to fly, shall God unroll the canvas, and explain the reasons why. The dark threads are as neatful, in the weaver’s skilful hand, as the thread of the gold and silver, in the pattern he has planned.”

See previously: The Thread Of History which features two reflections on life as a female weaver.

2014-05-06 Prayer+

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X01848 X01854 “are as needed” “are as needful”

Eddie Rides

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2014-06-23 EddieRides+

The famous “Eddie the Trooper” figure, previously seen marching over a field strewn with bodies in green and gold, is now on horseback in the Fountain area of Londonderry. For background, including the connection to Iron Maiden, see The Trooper and the Visual History page on Eddie.

Previously in this location: Vita, Victoria, Veritas

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Sinn Feins Stradgey

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2014-08-12 ParadesGraf1+

Four images portray a long graffito on the Cupar Way “peace” line. In full, it reads:

Provisional IRA leader Gerry Adams on Sinn Feins stadgey [= strategy] of Orange parades

“Ask any activist, did Drumcree happen by accident and they tell you “No”.

“3 years of hard work helped create those situations for us to exploit.”

Drumcree, Ormo [= Ormeau], Twad[d]ell, Dunloy. “Where next”??

Wood (Crimes Of Loyalty p. 202) gives the following quote, reportedly a transcript of remarks made by Adams at a Sınn Féın meeting in Meath, as, “Ask any activist in the North, did Drumcree happen by accident, and he will tell you “No.”. Three years of work on the Ormeau Road, in Portadown, and parts of Fermanagh and Newry, Armagh, and in Bellaghy, and up in Londonderry [other sources, such as the Irish Times, give the much more likely “Derry”]. Three years of work went into creating that situation and fair play to those who put the work in. They are the type of scene chances we need to focus on and develop and exploit.”

Descriptions of the contentious parades in the places mentioned can be found on CAIN.

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Defenders Of The Pass

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2014-08-09 DonPassPhoto+

Here are close-ups of the two boards to either side of the new Young Conquerors piece (featured recently in Veni, Vidi, Vici). The first shows a photograph of the original Donegall Pass Defenders Flute Band, which lasted a short time in the 1970s before the formation of the Conquerors in 1977 (Fb). The second shows the patch of the band.

Update (2015-01): Nikki has kindly sent us an image of the band parading, taken sometime in the 1970s. Her grandfather, Thomas Lorimer, recently passed away and she found the picture in his roof space. He was a member of the Defenders and is at the far left of the picture, on the bass drum. She was also able to identify him in the posed picture from the board – shown in detail below; he is the tall gent in the back.

2014-08-09 DonPassPatch+

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DonPassDefendParade
Copyright © Family of Thomas Lorimer. Used with permission.

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