Portadown/Craigavon

In Answer To The Echo Of Alarm

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03575 2016-06-15 Somme 2016+

One hundred years ago today, on July 1st, 1916, the Battle of Albert began, the first of many battles in what is known collectively as the Battle of the Somme. Soldiers from the 36th (Ulster) Brigade went “over the top” at 7:28 a.m. By the end of the day, more than nineteen thousand British soldiers were dead, five thousand from the 36th.

The line “We gathered from our towns, our villages and farms, in answer to the echo of alarm” comes from the song “Armagh Brigade”; the alarm is more specifically “Carson’s loud alarm”. Below the main panel, which shows combat at close quarters, are the words of Wilfrid Spender: “I am not an Ulsterman but yesterday, the 1st. July, as I followed their amazing attack, I felt that I would rather be an Ulsterman than anything else in the world … the Ulster Volunteer Force, from which the Division was made, has won a name that equals any in history.”

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Prepare To Meet Thy God

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2013-05-06 PrepareGod+

More religious graffiti on the Bann towpath, just south of Portadown: “Watch! Prepare to meet thy God. The coming of the Lord is near.”

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Copyright © 2013 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Mixed Messages

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2013-04-01 NoGodsNoMasters+

Not Catholics versus Protestants but atheists versus believers. Contradictory pieces from the towpath running along the Bann, out of Portadown and towards Newry. The first says “No Gods. No Masters”. The second says “The fool hath said there is no God.”

2013-04-01 TheFoolHathSaid+

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Copyright © 2013 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Put Our Flag Up!

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2013-04-01 PutOurFlagUpCrop+

This graffiti in Portadown is related to the on-going protest over the flying of the Union Flag at Belfast City Hall.

See previously: Let Your Union Flag Fly | Imagine | And So This Is Christmas.

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Copyright © 2013 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Bridge Street

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2013-02-25 PortadownBridge+

New union flags fly on Bridge Street as it crosses the river Bann in Portadown, looking towards the northeast.

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Copyright © 2013 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Rangers Ready

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Rangers Football Club, founded in 1872 (rather than the 1873 shown here – Brittanica), has its home in Glasgow, Scotland, but has a large following among Northern Irish Protestants.

Union Street, Edgarstown, Portadown.

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Copyright © 2011 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Mid Ulster UVF

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Pallets are collected for Eleventh night in the Edgarstown estate, in front of the murals on Union Street: from left to right: Portadown True Blues, Mid Ulster UVF, and the Ulster Volunteers. In the final image, “LVPW” [Loyalist Volunteer Prisoners’ Welfare] on the tarmac is modified (by the rival UVF) to become “DVPW” – “D” for “drugs”.

There are shots of Mid Ulster UVF and Ulster Volunteers walls in 2008 at the Peter Moloney Collection – Murals.

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Copyright © 2011 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Boyle & Somerville

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Harris Boyle and Wesley Somerville were UDR soldiers and UVF volunteers. They were “killed in action” when the bomb they were planting on the minibus of the Miami Showband went off prematurely. Of the pair, only Somerville’s arm, with its “UVF Portadown” tattoo remained identifiable (WP). The plaque is in Princess Way/Gloucester Avenue, Portadown.

Since 2014, the poster erected each year in Moygashel to honour Somerville has drawn criticism: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018.

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Copyright © 2011 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Here We Stand

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This Orange Order banner is on the outside wall of the shed in the graveyard of Drumcree church, Portadown, years after the dispute effectively ended.

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Copyright © 2010 Extramural Activity
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