British forces

Northern Ireland Centennial

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Here is a 12-part history of Northern Ireland (and specifically Londonderry) along the length of Sperrin Park in the Caw. After the title panel, the topics are: King George V opens Norther Ireland Parliament, 22nd June, 1921; Amelia Earhart crosses the Atlantic & lands in Londonderry 21st May, 1932; Operation Deadlight: surrender of German U-boats at Lisahally 14th May, 1945; Queen Elizabeth II visits Guildhall Sq. Londonderry 3rd July, 1951; opening of Altnagelvin hospital 1st February, 1960; the exodus of people from Londonderry’s Cityside 1970s; Northern Ireland reach the World Cup finals in Spain 1982; first Maiden City Festival takes place August, 1998; end of ‘Operation Banner’ 31st July, 2007; Londonderry named first UK City Of Culture 2013; Prince Philip the Duke Of Edinburgh 1921-2021.

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Shared History

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New panels – dubbed the ‘Wall History Project’ – have been added to the previous row of vintage images of the area (the “Peace” Wall Reimaging Project), telling personal stories of life during the Troubles including positive interactions with British soldiers and RUC officers. The “peace” wall in question runs along the top of the Fountain in Londonderry along Bishop Street WIthout. (The street was also “settled’ by the construction of senior citizens’ home, Alexander House.)

“The spoken words scattered across this peace wall are those of local women who have endured the Troubles in the City and continue to live in the shadow of its legacy. It gives a platform to all too long silenced voices, to share real real life experiences, memories and hopes for the future in a divided society. During lockdown, a group of women who have transcended division for years through the Bogside & Brandywell Initiative’s Peace Barriers Programme continued to connect on Thursday evenings via Zoom. The craic was 90, there was laughter, tears, words of encouragement, banter and good old Derry/Londonderry slagging.”

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“This Shared History Panel Initiative was officially launched by Mayor of Derry & Strabane, Councillor Elisha McCallion and Dr Adrian Johnston, Chairman, International Fund for Ireland, 12-12-2015. … This initiative is a symbolic display of what can be achieved when community groups and residents work together.”

Still No Inquest, Still No Justice

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A march took place this past Saturday (July 9th, 2022) to mark the 50th anniversary of the Springhill-Westrock massacre, in which five people were killed by the British Army. A new inquest was directed by the AG in 2014 but has been repeatedly delayed; it is scheduled to begin next year (Belfast Live).

The march was organised by the Springhill-Westrock Campaign (Fb | tw); it began at the memorial plaque in Springhill and ended at the memorial garden in Westrock (Irish News). See also Keep On Praying.

The mural shows the pre-fab aluminium bungalows built in Westrock in 1949.

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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).

339 Orange Order members killed during the Troubles.

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CentenNIal Parade

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An Orange parade to celebrate the centennial of Northern Ireland – postponed last year on account of the pandemic – will take place today, with roughly 130 bands marching from Stormont to Belfast city centre (Belfast Live). There is not much indication of the parade in posters or murals, perhaps because the anniversary itself has passed. If we read the community’s concerns from the displays in the window of this Shankill Road shop (just above the old Beresford St and the Mussen Cortège mural), they include the NI centenary and the murder of Lee Rigby (WP) (image above), PTSD (second image), the upcoming platinum jubilee of Queen Elizabeth (third) – we will have more jubilee photos over the coming week, and the centenary of the Ulster Tower WWI memorial (see e.g. Our Heritage In Your Hands).

You can get all your centenary gear and Shankill Protestant Boys merch on-line at Northern Culture.

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Was This Lawful?

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A 2021 command paper that proposed a statue of limitations and amnesty for so-called “legacy” killings included the claim that ‘the vast majority of security force killings were lawful’ (BelTel) and the comment has been attributed to NI Secretary Brandon Lewis (Pat Finucane Centre). (For background see e.g. this eamonnmallie.com piece.) The claim is used against him in this tarp commemorating Stephen McConomy was hit by a plastic bullet forty years ago this month, on April 16th, and died three days later: “Stephen McConomy (11) shot dead by Lanc. Corp. from Royal Anglian Regiment – April 1982. Was this ‘lawful’, Brandon Lewis?” Speaking at the memorial service, surviving family-members vowed to continue resisting the proposed limitations (Derry Journal).

There is also a plaque to McConomy in Fahan Street where he was shot (this one has since been replaced) and long ago there was a mural on Rossville Street.

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Spirit Of ’93

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The house in Bond’s Place that had been home to an Eddie mural for many years was torn down last summer (see final image for the hoarding around the site of the absent gable); it had been used since at least 1982 for images of the Commonwealth, King Billy, and, since 1996, Eddie The Trooper. The final Eddie board that was on the wall has been moved one neighbourhood over, into Lincoln Court. It was the first to include the words “Spirit Of ’93” – presumably a reference to the Greysteel Massacre in which eight people in the Rising Sun bar were killed in reprisal for the Shankill Bombing (BelTel). The “raid” was planned in – and both gunmen rented rooms at – the UDP office on Bond’s Place, just across Bonds Street (NI Judiciary).

Eddie has his own Visual History page.

“SLMFB” is the Sergeant Lindsay Mooney flute band.

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Whitehead Temperance

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Benjamin West painted The Battle Of The Boyne in 1778 and his composition – with William moving from left to right on a white horse and Marshal Schomberg dying in the bottom-right corner – has become the standard representation in loyalist culture, perhaps due to versions of it appearing on the covers of songbooks for the Orange Order and the Apprentice Boys soon after (Belinda Loftus 1982 Images In Conflict). It appears here on the wall of Whitehead Orange Hall, along with a board connecting service by Irish soldiers in British forces in WWI and Afghanistan (see previously: Time Changes in east Belfast).

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One World, One Struggle

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“One world, one struggle” and one common cause: British imperialism. The Palestinian flag flies beside Free Derry Corner (and the Petrol Bomber mural), which has been papered over with “There is n0 British justice” – this sets the theme for the march this afternoon (recreating the 1972 civil rights march in Derry from Creggan to the Bogside, starting at 2:30) which not only commemorates the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday (Bloody Sunday 50) but protests the British occupation of countries all around the world – the poster from Bloody Sunday March makes reference to the Amritsar (Jallianwala Bagh) Massacre, the Barbados Slave Code, (Second) Boer War concentration camps, and many others.

See also: the Visual History pages for the front of Free Derry Corner | the rear of Free Derry Corner

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End The Occupation

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“20,000+ security personnel maintain Britain’s occupation of Ireland.” ‘End imperialism, End the occupation’ is a Lasair Dhearg (web | tw) campaign; the 20,000 includes the PSNI as well as troops in “multiple permanent British Army bases”; the stencil in the image below (from affiliated organisation, Red Section (tw)), from the Monagh Bypass, suggests that there are “700+ MI5 agents in Ireland”. The tarp shown above is on the railings at the Falls Road/Glen Road junction, site of the former RUC barracks; the stencil is on the Andersonstown Road.

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