This large Union Flag is another “East Belfast UVF” marking in the Westwinds estate in Newtownards (10 miles to the east of Belfast), a more colourful companion to the hooded gunmen in East East Belfast and EB UVF. The familiar purple-and-orange UVF flag flies over the playground.
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Dee Craig has updated the Victoria Crosses mural in Cregagh, honoring G[eoffrey St. George Shillington] Cather, W[illiam Frederick] MacFadzean, R[obert] Quigg, and E[ric] N[orman] F[rankland] Bell. Five more were included in a board on the Shankill and another in Willowfield Street. (For the previous Cregagh version, see M03390)
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For the third time, these two panels – one of the signing of the Covenant in 1912 and the other of soldiers in collarettes and sashes defending their trench against a German attack – are visible at Barrington Gardens. They were originally on the gable at the corner before it was demolished (see July 1st); during re-development they were placed on a metal frame (see Out Of The Rubble).
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These UDA 2nd battalion D company boards are in the lower Kilcooley estate, Bangor. This piece is co-branded as “North Down/West Belfast”, even though it is only metres away from a (North Down/East Belfast) North Down Defenders board. See Ulster Defence Unions for more on the tensions between the rival UDA factions.
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“Fáılte go Cnoc na Foınse – Welcome to Springhill.” There are a dozen new boards on either side of the Ballymurphy entrance to Springhill, highlighting positive aspects of the community, such as the work of Mother Teresa and four Missionary Sisters Of Charity from 1971-1973, the Upper Springfield Festival of 1973 (later revived in 1988 and years following as the Springhill Festival), Tara Stores and The Craft Centre, set up as a form of local enterprise in an area of mass unemployment, and the Springhill Community House, still in operation today but going back to Des Wilson and Noelle Ryan. There is no explicit mention of the 1972 Springhill-Westrock Massacre, though there is a picture of Fr Noel Fitzpatrick on the south side of the street, which will be featured in a separate post.
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Here are six panels from the shops in the Westwinds estate in Newtownards, which have replaced a UVF mural (Help Us To Help You).
Little is known about the omnibus called “The Pride Of Ulster”, except that this picture shows it at Newtownards Railway Station, Victoria Avenue, c. 1920. SAS soldier and boxer (and rugby-player) Blair “Paddy” Mayne, DSO, is portrayed in the second panel. (For more, see these posts about Mayne from 2013 and 2014.).
On the other side of the Ulster Banner in the centre is a WWII Douglas Dakota C-47, specifically “FZ692 of No. 233 Squadron, around the D-Day period in 1944. This aircraft, which was named “Kwicherbichen” by her crews, was involved in Para-dropping operations on the eve of D-Day and subsequently in re-supply and casualty evacuation missions into and out of forward airfields in the combat areas” (RAF).
Motorcyclist Joey Dunlop is on the far right (see Race Of Legends), and above them all is a WWI board from the 1st Newtownards Somme Society (based in the Somme museum in Conlig?).
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Three members of the Miami Showband were killed in 1975 at a fake check-point set by members of the UVF’s Glennane Gang. The explosion during the incident did not kill the musicians (as the graffiti on the poster above in loyalist east Belfast suggests); they were shot. Rather, a bomb exploded prematurely as it was being planted on their van, killing two of the attackers – see Boyle & Somerville – prompting the shooting spree (WP) that left three of the five band-members dead.
For the mural in the background, see Please Pay Here.
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This post updates a 2017 one (Always A Little Further) from Whitehill, Bangor, with the addition of “1912 UVF” between the two “East Belfast UVF” boards, suggesting a softening of message. Similarly, a long “Ulster Volunteer Force” has been blacked out directly across the street.
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The main panel (shown below) is a tribute to soldiers in the Great War (1914-1918), with a border of poppies and silhouetted soldiers reflecting over helmets on crosses. To the side, however, is the modern UVF volunteer (shown above), with balaclava and assault rifle.
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This hooded gunman from the East Belfast UVF – like the series of stencils featured previously in EB UVF – is on a wall in Newtownards’s Westwinds estate. Below is a EB UVF mural at the bottom of Bowtown, not far from the West Belfast UDA mural in Greenwell St. The UVF and UDA also compete in the Glen estate; compare Today’s Local with Our Heritage In Your Hands.
Questions about EB UVF lawlessness in north Down arose over the summer with a “business opportunity” presented to local hostelries (Belfast Live | ITV).
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Extramural Activity 