Edenderry bonfire standing tall on the site of the former Portadown railway station, with commemorative plaque to the Ulster Volunteers on the left-hand pillar.
Elsewhere in Portadown, local residents were advised by the council to leave their homes ahead of the Corcrain/Redmanville bonfire, to be lit tonight (10th) (BBC).
See previously: The Killicomaine bonfire: Respect.
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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).
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The yellow board in the foreground lists battles of the North Down Battalion in World War I (for a description of the battalion, see the previous 2017 post). Added to that since then is a large black-and-white board to the modern Ulster Volunteer Force and its divisions: Bangor, Donaghadee, Ballywalter, Newtownards, Millisle, and Portavogie. (It’s worth noting that although this is a board, the UVF emblem in the middle is depicted as having been painted on a brick wall, indicating a preference for old-school muraling.)
Below is a shot of the rest of the low wall, with Bangor Protestant Boys Flute Band (previously seen in 2017). Owenroe Drive, Bangor.
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Dee Craig has updated the Victoria Crosses mural in Cregagh, honoring G[eoffrey St. George Shillington] Cather, W[illiam Frederick] MacFadzean, R[obert] Quigg, and E[ric] N[orman] F[rankland] Bell. Five more were included in a board on the Shankill and another in Willowfield Street. (For the previous Cregagh version, see M03390)
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This post updates a 2017 one (Always A Little Further) from Whitehill, Bangor, with the addition of “1912 UVF” between the two “East Belfast UVF” boards, suggesting a softening of message. Similarly, a long “Ulster Volunteer Force” has been blacked out directly across the street.
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The first time that the horseless carriage was used in a military operation was the Ulster Volunteers’ “Larne Gunrunning” of April 1914. By this time, there are thought to have been 350 vehicles in the Corps (Angelsey). It’s not clear whether the cars were later used by the 36th (Ulster) Division – please comment/get in touch if you can shed light on this. (For Spencer’s quote on the left, see I am not an Ulsterman.) The plaque is to (modern) UVF volunteer ‘Squeak’ Seymour.
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The Ulster Tower at Thiepval, France, is a replica of Helen’s Tower in Clandeboye, around which the 36th (Ulster) Brigade, formed in August 1914 from the Ulster Volunteers and Young Citizen Volunteers, began their training (see this gallery of images from North Down Museum at BBC-NI). After a year of training in Ireland and England, the Division was deployed to France in September 1915.
In the top corners are two views of the local Scrabo Tower, which can be seen to the right in the wide shot, below. Produced by muraltec.
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The Young Citizen Volunteers (YCV) is the youth division of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and its emblem, shared with the YCV of 1912, is the red hand on green shamrock, as shown in black-and-white (above and below) in a new side-wall added to the recently repainted UVF mural in Tavanagh Street, for which see the wide shot (third image) and Taking Aim.
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These five images show the remains of an Ulster Special Service Force (USSF) mural in Drumahoe Gardens, Millbrook. In addition to the union flag and emblem of the unit, the mural showed the Covenant and Carson, the gunrunning ship Clyde Valley which landed at Larne (not shown here), the garlanded red hand shown above, a memorial lamp post(?) not shown, soldiers from the 36th Division going over the top(fourth), the Ulster Tower and a helmet on a cross (not shown).
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British Army soldiers from four streets are commemorated in a plaque in Barrington Gardens. All four streets – Abingdon, Barrington, Colchester, and Dorchester – have changed their names or disappeared entirely (Dorchester) since 1914. “Erected by 1st Belfast Rangers Friends Of The Somme Society” – the supporters club is right next door.
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Extramural Activity 