“Liberation isn’t on the ballot – spoil your vote” and “Reject war – reject Westminster – spoil your ballot”. According to the Marxist-Leninist ideology of CYM (Connolly Youth Movement), society should move from capitalism to socialism and it therefore “does not endorse any social democratic parties in Ireland” (item 2.5 of the constitution). A look at the list of candidates for the fast-approaching election on July 4th (BBC) shows that no Communist/Workers’ Party candidates are standing.
The posters are in North Street (above) and Royal Avenue (below).
Twenty portraits in circular frames have replaced the twenty-one square portraits seen on the ‘Out Of The Ashes Of 1969’ mural in the New Lodge. From left to right, those portrayed are Michael P Neill, Seamus McCusker, Gerard Crossan, Colm Mulgrew, Francis Liggett, Brian Fox, John Kelly, Robert Allsopp, Louis Scullion, Billy Reid, Danny O’Hagan, Michael Kane, Sean McIlvenna, Jim O’Neill, Rosemary Bleakley, Martin McDonagh, James McCann, James Sloan, Dan McCann. Paddy McManus is no longer included, as compared with the earlier portraits.
For the mural without any portraits, at the time of its launch in 2012, see X00857.
Here is a survey of PUL boards (from left to right) at the shops in the centre of the village of Moygashel, just south of Dungannon.
First is a British Army soldier in a firing position. Compare this board to Now Is The Time To Kneel in Clonduff, Castlereagh, which suggested that the time for soldiers to kneel was in mourning for Queen Elizabeth.
The subject of the second image is obscure. Vanguard as a political and activist group dissolved in 1977 (WP) and the name and emblem have been taken up by the Vanguard Bears, a Rangers supporters’ club (see e.g. Defending Our Traditions).
Third is a children’s mural, produced (in part) by children from Howard primary school.
The ‘Time To Decide’ and UDR 8th (Co. Tyrone) battalion roll of honour were seen previously, alongside two others which are now absent, in Belfast Agreement Null & Void.
Beyond those is a tarp celebrating Queen Elizabeth II’s platinum jubilee, in 2022.
Finally, a Moygashel Youth Club (Fb) mural in disrepair.
“Armed and ready – Protestant Action Force [PAF] – ‘The Elite'”. The PAF name was used to cover semi-independent sub-groups of the UVF, active in the 1970s and 1980s in mid-Ulster and Newtownabbey (WP). The name was given in connection with rioting in Newtownards in late 2021 (BelTel).
These new boards claiming that the PAF was an “elite” are in in the Whitehill area of Bangor. The second such board, shown below, is covering up a memorial to David Gordon Dalzell (for background see Pride Of Whitehill).
The Red Hand Commando – another UVF sub-group/cover-name – also claim to be “the elite”; see e.g. 99.9% Need Not Apply.
The UVF mural in Carlingford Street, east Belfast, that the one shown here replaces was controversial at the time (2013) because of its proposed inclusion of two hooded gunmen in fatigues firing into the air. In response to the concerns expressed, the final version put both figures in WWI uniforms and had only one firing into the air – the other gazed downward in prayer – and the modern UVF was referenced only in the forms of the towers and cages of Long Kesh and of a roll of honour. (See Years Of Sacrifice for both the draft and final murals.)
The cages are retained in this new board but the depiction of violence is more explicit here than in the proposed mural a decade ago: at the centre of this piece is a hooded gunman carrying an assault rifle.
For the wider context of re-imaging and re-re-imaging (that is, the disappearance and return of PUL hooded gunmen), see Visual History 11.)
Long Kesh’s cages are also included in a Shankill board to Stevie McCrea – A True Soldier Of Ulster.
“All gave some; some gave all.” During its twenty-two years of operation, 197 UDR soldiers were killed. The scroll on the left gives the dates of the regiment’s operation: 1970 (April 1) was the year it replaced the Special Constabulary, and 1992 (May 31) was the year seven of the nine battalions were amalgamated with the Royal Irish Rangers’ two battalions to form the (modern) Royal Irish Regiment (WP) – the piper in the top right is carrying a flag of the Royal Irish Regiment.
The inscription on the plaque reads: “Ulster Defence Regiment mural, dedicated on the 19th March 2016 by Chairman Roy Burton, Carrickfergus Glasgow Rangers Supporters Club [and] Chairman Stephen Weir, Carrickfergus Ulster Defence Regiment Association CGC. Lest we forget.”
Dundela “ultras” have been told they are not welcome at the team’s future games after “unsavoury chanting” at the NI Championship match against local rivals H&W Welders – “the most cataclysmic derby match in world football” (BelTel).
Thirteen more soccer-related stickers are below, including [Glasgow] Rangers Action Force and Rangers Riot Crew.
“Resistance to IRA demands – “Every word spoken in Irish is like a bullet being fired in the struggle for Irish freedom” – Ulster says no to an ILA.” The precise wording and the author of the quotation are unclear. Nelson McCausland of the DUP gives it as “Now every phrase you learn is a bullet in the freedom struggle” and attributes it to Sinn Féın’s Pádraıg Ó Maolchraoıbhe in May 1982 (BelTel | Nelson’s View). The Irish language is not, of course, the exclusive property of militant republicanism, and, although the IRA has ceased its campaign and decommissioned its weapons, it is used here in conjunction with an image of a gunman firing an assault rifle in order to provoke fear against an Irish Language Act. The bill – enacted by Westminster rather than Stormont – became law last (2022) December (BBC). The poster dates from 2022 or 2021.
“It is not for riches, fame or glory that we remain in the shadows of our community , but for its protection.”
These words are echoed on the central stone in the garden of reflection, with adjacent North Down UDA roll of honour: “‘Who shall separate us?’ Right up to the present day, these words have been the inspiration and motivation of numerous men and women to serve, fight and die for the defence of their homeland, its people and its heritage. This selfless action is not for riches, fame or glory, but is freely given out of a love of freedom, commitment to the faith and culture of our nation, and a desire that all future generation in all communities can live in peace.”
Movilla Street and Wallace’s Street, off Upper Movilla Street. “Loyalist Movilla” in Newtownards.
There is a memorial garden to the history of Irish resistance at the entrance to the Athletic Grounds in Armagh. From left to right, the images presented here show:
“More than 800 years of Irish resistence” – a sword for the Norman invasion under Strongbow, a pike for the 1798 and 1803 rebellions, a bolt-action rifle for the Easter Rising of 1916, and an assault rifle for the Troubles;
Cumann Na mBan, Mairéad Farrell and republican women who made “the supreme sacrifice”;
The Proclamation, Provisional IRA and Na Fianna;
The dying Cú Chulainn and a plaque “in proud and loving memory of all republican volunteers, ex-POWs and the unsung heroes from this area who fought, suffered and died in the cause of Ireland’s freedom, with a quote from James Connolly: ‘If you strike at, imprison or kill us, out of prisons or graves will still evoke a spirit that will thwart you and perhaps raise a force that will destroy you! We defy you England! Do your worst!”;
“Remember Ireland’s hunger strikers – 22 men” – the ten 1981 hunger strikers and Thomas Ashe, Terence MacSwiney, Michael Fitzgerald, Joe Murphy, Joseph Whitty, Andy O’Sullivan, Denny Barry, Tony D’Arcy, Jack McNeela, Seán McCaughey, Michael Gaughan, Frank Stagg;
A stone “in loving memory of men, women and children murdered by British forces in Ireland.”
Extramural Activity 