WWI

The Volunteers Who Bravely Fought For Our Freedom

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The emblem at the centre of this latest version of the 36th (Ulster) Division mural in Glynn seems to be a novel creation, putting together a crown sitting on a blue ribbon draped over a shield showing a (right-handed) red hand, with a garland of shamrock, thistle, and rose.

This is the fifth mural (at least) on this wall since 2008. The only images we have of the previous one shows it in a vandalised state (see the images from 2020 below); for earlier, see 2015, 2011 (Street View), and 2008.

The plaque on the stone to the right reads, “When you go home, tell them of us and say for their tomorrow we gave our today”

The new mural has the following to its left: “This mural was erected by the Friends of the Somme Co. Antrim in remembrance of the volunteers of the 36th (Ulster) Division who bravely fought for our freedom. ‘At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them.”

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The Pride Of Whitehill

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This UVF hooded gunman board (above the Pride Of Whitehill flute band (Fb) mural) was previously a memorial to the 36th (Ulster) Division (see They Sleep Side-By-Side) but has now become part of the East Belfast battalion’s markings in Bangor (see Always A Little Further).

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First Newtownards Somme & Historical Society

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This is new, more extensive display from The First Newtownards Somme & Historical Society (Fb)(replacing The Pride Of Ulster). There are seven panels about the Ulster Volunteers and the 36th Division, plus an eighth panel on the Ulster Special Constabulary. The formation of the Ulster Volunteers (anti-Home Rule poster | anti-Home Rule postcard), formation of the 36th (Ulster) Division, the 13 battalions of the division, the Battle Of The Somme, JP Beadle’s Attack Of The Ulster Division (Royal Irish), the Ulster Tower, the USC (B Specials), the Victoria Cross.

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The Last Post

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This post updates a 2018 post The Menin Gates with the addition of the side-wall shown above – which is still incomplete – and the two plaques shown in the middle image.

“The Menin Gate And Last Post Ceremony: Every night at 8.00pm (20:00 hours) a moving ceremony takes place under the Menin Gate in Ieper – Ypres. The Last Post Ceremony has become part of the daily life in Ieper (Ypres) and the local people are proud of this simple but moving tribute to the courage and self-sacrifice of those who fell in defence of their town. At 7.30pm the police arrive, and all traffic is stopped from driving through the Menin Gate until 8.30pm. For one hour the noise of traffic echoing around the Menin Gate from the cobbled road ceases. The crowd is hushed. A stillness descends over the memorial. Buglers of the local volunteer Fire Brigade arrive and stand ready at the eastern entrance of the Menin Gate Memorial. At 8.00pm The Last Post is sounded, and a moments [sic] silence is observed. “Réveille” [sic] signifies the end of the ceremony.” “Sponsored by East Bank Rangers Supporters Club“

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For The Fallen

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“They fought together as brothers in arms, they died together and now sleep side by side. To them we owe a solemn obligation. They died that we might live. The Great Wars 1914-1918, 1939-1945 – Admiral Chester W Nimitz”. The central image of this Newtownards homage to the men of the 36th (Ulster) Division and the Australian ‘Rats Of Tobruk’ who held that city against Rommel’s forces in north Africa during WWII is the Tyne-Cot cemetery near Passchendaele, Belgium, the biggest Commonwealth cemetery in the world but named ofter the “Tynside cottages” that the German pill-boxes in the area resembled (WP).

New for the NI centenary are three emblems on the side wall, with (on the left) the Red Hand Comrades Association and (on the right) the Strain-Lightbody Memorial flute band (Fb).

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It’s A Long Way To Tullygarley

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The previous Tullygarley mural on this wall included images of the local area in addition to the emblem of the 36th Division and the Clyde Valley but the new one is devoted solely to the years 1912-1918. On the left is the Ulster Covenant and the Clyde Valley, then an image of Drumalis House, Larne, which was a training ground for the Ulster Volunteers (see silent film from 1914 at BFI and photo of Carson presenting colours at Drumalis) and the base from which the gunrunning was staged, along with Carson acknowledging the troops at Glencairn (in Belfast). In the third image, the 36th (Ulster) Division goes over the top and sits in trenches. Finally, there is a ‘Local Area Roll of Honour’ listing 60 locals who died in WWI.

The odd-man-out image – of paint peeling to reveal a red hand – shows the re-emergence of a mural from 1999 on the side wall.

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Our Murdered Brethren

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Orange Order Victims day is an annual commemoration (on September 1st) of the 339 members who were killed during the Troubles. The stained glass window reproduced in a board on the Newbuildings memorial garden is in the Museum of Orange Heritage in Schomberg House, south Belfast.

Compared with the garden in 2020 (see Newbuildings Victoria), there is a new NI Centenary board, and on the outside (replacing the tarps giving thanks for the NHS and commemorating the 75th anniversary of VE day) there is a celebration of the platinum jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. On the electrical box, there is a stencil in support of Bloody Sunday’s “Soldier F”, who continues to face murder charges (for the killings of William McKinney and James Wray) and five attempted murder charges after the PPS’s decision to discontinue prosecution was quashed in March (Guardian); the PPS has appealed (News Letter).

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339 Orange Order members killed during the Troubles.

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Time To Decide!

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Here is a selection of anti-Protocol placards from the Caw, Londonderry and Newbuildings. Above: a PSNI officer with a Sinn Féin badge – “PSNI – destroying the loyalist community since 4th Nov. 2001. In the pocket of Sinn Féin.” (November 4th, 2001 is the date the PSNI was created.) For the farmer’s wife protecting the farm, see Deserted, well I can stand alone. Below: “Newbuildings says No to Irish Sea border”, “Loyalist Newbuildings will never accept a border in the Irish Sea”, “The Belfast Agreement has been broken – the deal’s off”, and “Our forefathers fought for our freedom and rights/No border in the sea or we continue the fight”.

For similar placards in Moygashel, see Belfast Agreement Null And Void.

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From The Shipyard To The Somme

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The 36th (Ulster) Division Memorial Association (Fb) put on a play called From The Shipyard To The Somme (Fb | watch on youtube) in Connswater Community Centre in 2013. It follows a group of men from east Belfast who joined the Ulster Volunteers in Belfast but are now training at Abercorn barracks in Ballykinlar (later an internment camp) as members of the 36th Division, before going to the Battle Of The Somme in France.

Belfast – with one tenth of the population – provided about a third of the Irish soldier to participate in WWI. In the shipyards, Harland & Wolff responded to the slow-down in production not by putting everyone on short time but by letting go of employees, particularly unskilled employees, for whom the wages of soldiering were competitive (particularly if married), while skilled men were reclassified as “munitions workers” needed to fulfill war contracts (History Ireland | Long Kesh Inside Out).

The Somme board, which dates to about 2015, is above Connswater Commemorates and The Glorious Dead.

The plaques are to John Cochrane of the Mersey Street Area Residents Association and Margaret Proctor ?of the Connswater Community Centre?

The industrial mural on the side perhaps features the Ballymacarrett rail crash of 1945, described previously in Step Back In Time.

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Lest We Forget

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This is the third commemoration to Village UVF volunteer Stevie McCrea and the second to Sammy Mehaffy – see Stephen Desmond McCrea and Battalion Of The Dead, which also includes John Hanna, who has a solo board in Prince Edward Pk.

As is often now the case, the modern UVF (McCrea died 1989-02-18 from wounds sustained in the IPLO attack on the Orange Cross, and Mehaffy on 1991-11-13, shot by the IRA in nearby Lecale Street) is mixed in with the 1912 anti-Home Rule Ulster Volunteers and Young Citizen Volunteers, which are themselves blended together with WWI and the 36th (Ulster) Division of 1914-1918.

Replaced 2nd Batt B Coy and next to Taking Aim in Tavanagh St.

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