Ending The Harm is a Department Of Justice (Tackling Paramilitarism Programme) campaign of posters, radio ads, and hard-hitting videos (YouTube) aimed at combatting paramilitary-style violence. This hoarding is on Newtownards Road, in competition with the UVF mural in the Iceland car-park (see Please Pay Here).
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Copyright © 2019 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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As time passes, volunteers who survived the Troubles are being taken by natural causes. There are thousands of such people and it is not clear on what grounds some will be publicly commemorated and others not – it might as simple as whether surviving friends and family take the pains to do so. See, for example, the plaques of republican ex-prisoners being added to a wall in Ardoyne (Door Into The Dark). The plaques above “In loving memory of Volunteer Dennis/Denis Brine, associated with Glasgow Red Hand Commandos” are in the lower Shankill estate.
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Copyright © 2019 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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“On a cold Friday afternoon in February 1989, a young Red Hand Commando volunteer, Stevie McCrea, gave up his life to save others during an attack by the IPLO – a republican drug gang – at the Orange Cross Club just off the Shankill Road. Stevie, who was celebrating his last day on a work-out scheme with friends, went to the club for a farewell drink. A short time later, after gaining access through the outer door of the club, three IPLO gunmen burst into the main bar and started shooting indiscriminately. Stevie reacted immediately, placing himself between the gunmen and his friends. He was shot a number of times. Sadly he died from his injuries two days later. Stevie, even as a young man was a willing and active volunteer for the RHC, which culminated with him being arrested in October 1972 and being sentenced to life imprisonment early in 1973. Stevie served 16 years as a political prisoner in Long Kesh. He thoughtlessly gave up his life for others. A true soldier of Ulster. Forever remembered by friends and comrades. Lamh dearg abu.”
The obituary in the March 1998 issue of Combat states that McCrea was no longer in the RHC after his release from prison.
This new photographic mural, with “Loyalist Compound 21, Long Kesh prison camp” as a background, replaces a painted one to McCrea that had stood since 2000.
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Copyright © 2019 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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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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Copyright © 2018 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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A Red Hand Commando board in Whitehill (Bangor) is starting to show its age.
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Copyright © 2018 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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This large Union Flag is another “East Belfast UVF” marking in the Westwinds estate in Newtownards (10 miles to the east of Belfast), a more colourful companion to the hooded gunmen in East East Belfast and EB UVF. The familiar purple-and-orange UVF flag flies over the playground.
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Copyright © 2018 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Three members of the Miami Showband were killed in 1975 at a fake check-point set by members of the UVF’s Glennane Gang. The explosion during the incident did not kill the musicians (as the graffiti on the poster above in loyalist east Belfast suggests); they were shot. Rather, a bomb exploded prematurely as it was being planted on their van, killing two of the attackers – see Boyle & Somerville – prompting the shooting spree (WP) that left three of the five band-members dead.
For the mural in the background, see Please Pay Here.
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Copyright © 2018 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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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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Copyright © 2018 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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The main panel (shown below) is a tribute to soldiers in the Great War (1914-1918), with a border of poppies and silhouetted soldiers reflecting over helmets on crosses. To the side, however, is the modern UVF volunteer (shown above), with balaclava and assault rifle.
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Copyright © 2018 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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A Union Flag is freshly repainted on a rock in the Westwinds estate, Newtownards, now joined by the emblem of the YCV on another.
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Copyright © 2018 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Extramural Activity 