Voters go to the polls on March 2nd and among the candidates in East Belfast is Northern Ireland Conservative (web | Fb) Sheila Bodel. The party placard above in Grand Parade suggests that the peace process has been a “fleece process”.
Previously: Tapaıgh An Deıs | End The Age Of The Dinosaurs
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Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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A Somme/WWI soldier contemplates a grave next to a hill of poppies. Mural on the shutters of the Peppercorn café in east Belfast.
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In the folk tale, Cinderella gets her finery and glass slippers from a fairy godmother. Belfast folk must instead rely on The Glass Slipper, a dancewear shop in east Belfast specialising in ballet shoes and clothing.
Woodstock Road, east Belfast
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Two images of mason’s shops in west and east Belfast. Above, on the Falls Road, McAdams Memorials, with IRPWA signs for “Uncensored Béal Feırste political tours” on the first floor. Below, Hamilton Memorials on Woodstock Road, with “Justice 4 Rings(?) RIP” on the side wall.
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More from the 2017 campaign (see also Tapaıgh An Deıs), this time a Labour party (Web | Fb) hoarding (this one for Courtney Robinson, standing in East Belfast), encouraging voters to “end the age of the dinosaurs” which has wrought “RHI scandal, NHS in crisis, LGBT and abortion rights denied, and sectarian squabbling” and vote for a “cross-community alternative”. The Ulster banner hangs from the light-pole.
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A modern sprayer remembers ‘the legends’ of yesteryear: a footballer celebrates (perhaps from the former Willowfield FC which won the Irish Cup in 1928 or the current Willowfield Parish) and a H&W workers tucks into a sandwich.
The mural to the right of the image can be seen in My Anchor Holds.
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Winston Churchill’s line about the British Air Force in WWII, that “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few“, is echoed in this WWI board about the battles at the Somme between July 1st and November 18th, 1916. “The few” in this case, however, number nearly half a million dead and more than 72,000 missing. “Never before was a debt owed to so few by so many. Generation after generation owe them everything. Lest we forget.”
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Words (by Edward Mote in 1836) from a Christian hymn ‘My Hope Is Built On Nothing Less’, commonly sung to the 1863 tune by William Bradbury ‘The Solid Rock’ (WP) but also used with a different melody for the song Cornerstone (which is the name of the east Belfast community group) written on a ribbon wrapped around an anchor in east Belfast: “In every high and stormy gale, my anchor holds within the veil.”
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“Only by remembering these men, and others like them, can we ever repay their memory.” The Woodstock Somme Centenary Project aims to do that with a new collection of boards in Willowfield Street which includes (above) the nine Victoria Cross recipients from the 36th (Ulster) Division in World War I (from 1917 and 1918) – E[dmund] De Wind, E[rnest] Seaman, C[ecil] L[eonard] Knox, N[orman] Harvey, (from 1916) G[eoffrey] St. G[eorge] S[hillington] Cather, W[illiam] F[rederick] MacFadzean, E[ric] N[orman] F[rankland] Bell, R[obert] Quigg, and J[ames] S[amuel] Emerson – and information about the Ulster Tower and Thiepval memorials.
The illustrations come from Cyril Falls’s book The History Of The 36th (Ulster) Division (from Project Gutenberg).
For a wide shot, see Faugh-A-Ballagh.
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X04011 X04174 X04175 X04176 X04177 “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.” Canadian physician John McCrae 1872-1918
Henry Wilson Helen’s Tower Edward Lutyens President Doumer Philip Gibbs official british reporter
Here is the UDA/UFF mural on the left-hand gable of “Freedom Corner”. The mural is a 2015 repaint of the previous mural, which had to be replaced when it disintegrated. (See Freedom Corner for speculation as to the cause.) At the time, there was some disappointment that it was not repainted in a non-paramilitaristic fashion but defenders described the mural as “historical” (Tele).
The mural shows a UDA-jacketed volunteer with assault rifle and a modified version of the Declaration of Arbroath: “For as long as one hundred of us remain alive we shall never in anyway consent to submit to the Irish for it’s not for glory, honour or riches we fight but for freedom alone which no man loses but with his life – U.D.A./U.F.F”
From left to right: For Freedom Alone | As Long As 100 Of Us Remain Alive | Loyalist East Belfast | The Strangest Victory In All History | Ulster’s Past Defenders | Nationality is included in Loyalist East Belfast | Ulster’s Present Defenders | Freedom Corner
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Extramural Activity 