WWI

Thoughts Awe Hame

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

This contemplative WWI soldier is the mural part of a new memorial commemorating fallen UVF volunteers from Scotland. On the shutters of the Pizza Cabin on the Shankill.

Click to enlarge (to 1600 x 1256)

Copyright © 2019 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f8, 1/100 ISO 200, full size 3960 x 3108

X06842

In The Defence Of The Citizens Of Belfast

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
The re-developed memorial to the 36th (Ulster) Division along the Shore Road (see previously) now includes the emblems of the 10th and 16th Divisions, as well as a large metal plate “in honour of the brave men and women who served on the Home Front 1939-1945: the Ulster Defence Volunteer Force, the Women’s Voluntary Services, the Auxiliary Fire Service, the Air Raid Precautions Wardens. This memorial is dedicated to the thousands of local people who volunteered during World War II and to the York Road Civil Defence Hall which played a vital role in the defence of the citizens of Belfast.”
Click to enlarge (to 1600 x 1444)
Copyright © 2019 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f8, 1/800, ISO 400, full size 2872 x 2592

Click to enlarge (to 1000 x 1000)
Copyright © 2019 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f8, 1/320, ISO 400, full size 2592 x 2592
X06616 X06617

They Said We’d Never Last

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
Ronnie’s hardware shop in east Belfast, vacant for many years and the site of Our Brave Defenders, was finally torn down last year and a pocket park created with murals commemorating east Belfast volunteers who died in the Great War and the UVF Regimental Band (tw), this year celebrating its 50 anniversary (video of the launch). See previously: 40th anniversary banner at the same spot (Belvoir Bar).
Click to enlarge (to 1400 x 1096)
Copyright © 2019 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f8, 1/320, ISO 400, full size 2576 x 2520
Click to enlarge (to 1800 x 1200)
Copyright © 2019 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f8, 1/400, ISO 400, full size 3888 x 2592
Click to enlarge (to 1600 x 1166)
Copyright © 2019 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f8, 1/400, ISO 200, full size 3312 3558 x 2592
Click to enlarge (to 1400 x 2208)
Copyright © 2019 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f8, 1/500, ISO 200, full size 2074 x 3227
X06573 X06574 X06571 X06572 St Leonard’s Cr/old Newcastle St

The Somme 1916

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
The ‘Liverpool No. 4 battalion’ UVF mural in Tynan Drive, Monkstown, (seen previously) has been replaced by a Dee Craig (Fb) mural to the soldiers of the Ulster Volunteers (see the ‘bleeding hand’ symbol in the apex) at the Somme. The small plaque on the fence to John Webster (a.k.a. Webber), Lee Irwin & Steven Cook, remains.
Click to enlarge (to 2000 x 1500)
Copyright © 2019 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f5.1, 1/200, ISO 80, full size 4896 x 3672
text: X06479

The Irish Regiments

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
Various other murals pay tribute to the 10th and 16th Irish divisions alongside the 36th division (see, e.g., We Are The Dead Brothers In Arms | Killed Wounded Missing | Their Only Colour Was Khaki) but this tarp outside the Whiteabbey British Legion (Fb) shows instead the eight regiments raised in Ireland, whose battalions served not only these three but many other divisions: Royal Irish Rifles, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, Royal Irish Fusiliers, Connaught Rangers, Leinster Regiment, Royal Dublin Fusiliers, Royal Irish Fusiliers [should be Royal Irish Regiment], Royal Munster Fusiliers. The geographical distribution of the regiments (royal-irish.com has a map of the recruiting districts in Ireland; for battalions, divisions served, and regimental headquarters, see WP.) The background image is of the 36th in their trenches at the Battle Of The Somme.
Click and click again to enlarge (to 1650 x 1216)
Copyright © 2019 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f5.2, 1/80, ISO 100, full size 4380 x 3228
Click and click again to enlarge (to 1800 x 1130)
Copyright © 2019 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f4.6, 1/100, ISO 80, full size 4548 x 2856
Shore Road

Their Only Colour Was Khaki

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
This is a close-up of the painting in the window of My Old Toy Box (Fb) in Smithfield Market (BelfastCity). It includes the 36th (Ulster) Division, and 10th and 16th (Irish) Divisions. It is not clear why the 63rd (Royal Naval) Division (WP) is included as it does not appear to have any connection to Ireland. Please leave a comment if you can explain the connection.
Click to enlarge (to 1600 x 1470)
Copyright © 2019 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f3.3, 1/60, ISO 800, full size 3996 x 3672
Click to enlarge (to 1600 x 1522)
Copyright © 2019 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f3.3, 1/60, ISO 500, full size 3708 x 3528
text: X06464 X06465

East Belfast Ulster Volunteers

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
The Union Flag/UVF side-wall is a new addition to the Ulster Volunteers/UVF memorial in London Road, east Belfast. The main panel shows WWI soldiers going over the top (see Between The Crosses) while the four portraits to its right are of deceased UVF volunteers of the 70s and 80s – Seymour, Long, Cordner, and Bennett – (see Ulster’s Brave).
Click to enlarge (to 2000 x 1444)
Copyright © 2018 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f3.5, 1/80, ISO 100, full size 4256 x 3072
text: X06316

Comrades In Arms

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
John Meeke signed the Ulster Covenant in Dervock Orange Hall in 1912 and went to war with the Ulster Volunteers. Willie Redmond, brother of John Redmond, had been jailed three times and was a nationalist MP at Westminster when, at age 53, he signed up for service.
Major Redmond went over the top with the 16th (Irish) Division at Messines Ridge and was hit by machine-gun fire. Private Meeke, a stretcher-bearer with the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers in the 36th (Ulster) Division, found and stayed with Redmond under heavy fire, taking two bullets himself.
Redmond would die that night. He was awarded the Legion Of Honour by the French. His East Clare seat was taken by Éamon de Valera. Meeke survived after several surgeries. He was awarded the Military Medal by the British. After the World War, he joined the Specials and LOL 1001 in Benvarden before dying of TB in 1923 (NALIL | Irish Times | WP |BelTel).
Click to enlarge (to 1052 x 1200)
Copyright © 2018 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f8, 1/400, ISO 400, full size 2104 x 2400
Click to enlarge (to 1700 x 1238)
Copyright © 2018 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f8, 1/400, ISO 400, full size 3560 x 2592
text: X06390 [X06389] [X06388] ebrington st

Killed Wounded Missing

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
This small mural in the car-park of the Waterside Arts Centre, a companion piece to We Are The Dead which lists their battles, gives casualty totals for the 10th (Irish), 36th (Ulster), and 16th (Irish) divisions of the British Army in WWI .
Click to enlarge (to 1800 x 1200)
Copyright © 2018 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f8, 1/100, ISO 400, full size 3888 x 2592
text: X06387

The Menin Gates

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
The Menin Gate memorial, at the eastern edge of Ypres, Belgium, commemorates 54,896 Commonwealth soldiers who died in the area during WWI and whose bodies were not recovered. “To the armies of the British Empire who stood here from 1914 to 1918 and to those of their dead who have no known grave.” The gates in the image above are off Bonds Street, Londonderry, leading to the Ebrington Centre car park.
Click to enlarge (to 2000 x 1254)
Copyright © 2018 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f8, 1/50, ISO 400, full size 3560 x 2232
text: X06335