These two wide shots are from the junction of Northumberland and Beverly streets, where the new Kitchener board joins poppies for soldiers of the the 36th (Ulster) Division on the 100th anniversary of the Somme and the (repaired) John Henry Patterson – godfather of the Israeli army – board.
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“Are you one of Kitchener’s own?” asks a new mural in Northumberland Street: “We here pay grateful and everlasting tribute, to all foreign nationals across the empire, who courageously and passionately fought side by side with their British counterparts, for King and country, during the First World War.” The left-hand side (second image) features images of soldiers from the West Indies and India, including “The Flying Sikh”, Hardit Singh Malik and a French lady as she “pins flowers on a regiment containing Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus.” On the right, images of the “presentation of Colours to the 51st Battalion Canadian expeditionary force” and of Canadian “bluebird” nurses in the Canadian Army Medical Corps.
Replaces (part of) Welcome To The Shankill. See Belfast Live for an image from the launch.
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X04199 X04201 X04202 India Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Newfoundland, and the Union of South Africa. one million dead in the great war rest in France “A la gloire de dieu et a la memoire du million de morts de l’empire britannique tombes dans la grande guerre 191401918 et qui pour la plupart reposent en France.” Greater Shankill ACT
Here are two panels and a wide shot of the memorial garden in Frenchpark Street. Above is a verse from John McCrea’s In Flanders Fields. Below is a plaque “to the memory of all those Ulster men and women from the south Belfast area who died during the great wars 1914-18 and 1939-45, and to all those who have lost their lives during the recent troubles and continuing conflicts.”
Previously: They Gave A Lifetime
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Here are two final images from the memorial garden in Kilcooley. As mentioned in Tuesday’s post (To Keep Our Ulster Free), it seems that the combination of WWI imagery (today’s post and Across The Wire) and paramilitary memorials was not the plan approved by the Department of Social Development, which contributed funds to the project (Belfast Telegraph). A wide shot of the whole is included below.
According to an article in the Tele last Friday (2017-04-21), the Housing Executive has a list of over 100 memorial on Executive-owned land that it considers illegal. The list itself does not seem to be available and so it is not not known if the Kilcooley garden is one of these.
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“Faugh a ballagh” (Clear the way) was the motto of the Royal Irish Fusiliers (and then of the Royal Irish Rangers and currently of the Royal Irish Regiment). The Fusiliers served on the western front during WWI – the first and ninth battalions serving in the 36th (Ulster) Division – and the 3rd battalion helped put down the Easter Rising in 1916. Its coat of arm are one of four panels along with the 36th, the Royal Irish Rifles, and the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.
The Thiepval Memorial, the Cross of Sacrifice, and the Ulster Tower are pictured in the bottom left.
For the large upper board, see So Many; for the one in the bottom right, see Repaying Their Memory.
Close-ups of the four regimental insignia are included below. “Nec Aspera Terrant [sic, for “terrent”]”, meaning “frightened by no difficulties”, was the motto of the Inniskilling Fusiliers, who fought in both Boer Wars and both World Wars – its battalions saw action at Gallipoli and on the Western front – before being amalgamated in the Royal Irish Rangers in 1968, along with the Royal Ulster Rifles and the troop featured in the third image, the Royal Irish Fusiliers. Their arms are shown along with those of the Royal Irish Rifles and a board commemorating the charge from Thiepval Wood during the Somme
Willowfield Street, east Belfast
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X04010 X04171 X04170 X04172 X04173 “nec aspera terrent” 36th ulster division somme july 1st charge from thiepval wood willowfield charge from thiepval wood “Never before was a debt owed to so few by so many. Generation after generation owe them everything. Lest we forget.” faugh a ballagh nec aspera terrant terrent quis separabit
WWI soldiers from the 36th (Ulster) Division go over the top and make their way through the barbed wire. Not a mural but a painted sky on a memorial stone. Part of the Owenroe memorial garden in Bangor.
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Here are two wide shots of a long wall from the Bangor Protestant Boys Flute Band (Fb). Many of the panels are related to WWI. For the Somme panel on the left, see Ulster Volunteers; for three of the flags on the right, see North Down Battalion. Right of centre is an emblem for the band itself: the lion and the unicorn on either side of cross rifles and the red hand of Ulster on an oval.
For the previous (mural) version, see Bangor Protestant Boys.
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This is another part of a long ‘Bangor Protestant Boys Flute Band’ wall in Kilcooley: the shield of the 36th (Ulster) Division – the Union flag and Irish harp above a red hand on a field of shamrocks – on a garland of orange poppies and WWI battlefields on a purple ribbon – orange and purple being the colours of the Ulster Volunteers.
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X04088 somme theipval messines fricourt passchendaele st. quentin ypres flanders
“Ballybeen remembers it’s [sic] fallen – to the memory and sacrifice of the brave young men from East Belfast who gave their lives with countless others at the Somme and other battles during the Great War 1914-18.” The Union flag and the Thiepval memorials serve as a backdrop for images of individual soldier and photographs of soldiers and nurses at work.
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X04079 morven pk 1st july 1916 36th ulster division their name liveth for evermore 8th battalion royal irish rifles volunteers albert messines cambrai thiepval passchendaele ooteghem bailleul picardy st quentin ypres somme courtrai kemel ridge arras rossieres langemarck
The boards on the right read: “‘Tis thy flag and my flag;/The best of flags on Earth,/So cherish it my children,/It’s yours by right of birth.//Your fathers fought,/Your fathers died,/To raise it to the skies,/And we like them must never yield,/But keep it flying high.” from The Union Jack, by Edward Shirley, in Little Poems For Little People, and “In memory of the men and women from the Orangefield area, who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the defence of our freedom in all theatres of conflict, both foreign and at home.” These memorial boards are to local men who “stood to the fore to defend the Empire as the 8th Battalion (East Belfast) Royal Irish Rifles” in the 36th division, formed from formed from the “8th Battalion (Avoniel) and the 6th Battalion (Strandtown)” of the Ulster Volunteers.
For the Clyde Valley boards on the left, see Bloomfield House.
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Extramural Activity 