hood/mask/balaclava – Page 4 – Extramural Activity

The Sleeping Giant Has Awoken

2022-02-212025-01-06Extramural Activity1 Comment

Japan attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbor (near Honolulu, Hawaii) on December 7th, 1941. In the movie adaptations of the events, Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) and Pearl Harbour (2001), the Japanese Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto wondered if the effect of the attack would be “to awaken the sleeping giant and to fill him with terrible resolve” (WP). In the case of today’s images, the sleeping giant is a lion, and the lion is the UVF 1st East Antrim, with units not just in Larne, Ballyduff, Ballyclare, Greenisland, Glengormley, Monkstown, Rathcoole, Carrickfergus, and Whitehead, but in Drumchapel (Glasgow, Scotland), Springburn (Glasgow, Scotland), Possilpark (Glasgow, Scotland), Paisley (Scotland), Falkirk (Scotland), Liverpool (England), Blackpool (England), Corby (England), and Blairgowrie (Scotland). Balaclava’d men with ArmaLites stand ready: “Our forefathers fought for our freedom & rights/No border in the sea or we continue the fight.”

The combination of a free-floating Northern Ireland with Britain (in the first image, above) is rare in muraling, but necessitated by Brexit and the Protocol.

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Copyright © 2022 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X09303 X09304 X09305 X09306 X09308 X09302 X09307 stop PSNI harassment of the loyalist community no surrender YCV D Coy for god and ulster Drumahoe Gdns Millbrook

Comply With Your Country’s Demand

2021-09-032025-01-06Extramural Activity2 Comments

In September, 1914, six weeks after the Great War had begun, Edward Carson wrote to the Ulster Volunteers entreating “those who have not already responded” to “my call for Defenders of the Empire” to “enlist at once for the Ulster Division in Lord Kitchener’s Army”, fighting alongside “our fellow Britishers”: “Quit yourselves like men and comply with your country’s demand”. The impulse for the display of force shown here – two panels of hooded gunmen from the 1st East Antrim battalion of the UVF – is the other, original, motivation for the paramilitary force, which Carson describes as “to defend our citizenship in the United Kingdom” (Strachan & Nally).

For the RIR mural, see For Valour. The new panels shown here re-re-image the VC part of that previous mural in the Larches, Carrickfergus.

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Defending Freedom From Hate

2021-08-302025-01-03Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Compared to the UVF, the UDA more strongly detect an existential threat to loyalism and evince a siege mentality that provokes the need for armed resistance. Hence the more frequent presence of armed gunmen in UDA murals (which is also due in part to the UVF being able to “re-image” around the Ulster Volunteers and the Somme). With Brexit and the Protocol, however, armed gunmen have recently been appearing more frequently in UVF murals – see, for example, If Our Shores Are Threatened | Bang Up To Date | Our British Identity.

“Springmartin–Highfield–Glencairn Ulster Defence Association est. 1971. Defending freedom from hate.” As the companion mural (We Will Take Nothing Less) makes clear, the hate is coming from a “fascist republican enemy” (“Sinn Fein/IRA”, presumably) and the government of Ireland. Graphically, this mural is the same as the previous one on this wall: Under The Protection Of The UDA.

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Copyright © 2023 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Past And Present

2021-07-282025-01-03Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The Castlereagh (4th battalion) UDA memorial garden behind the Bunch Of Grapes has changed over the years from painted murals (M | X) to spray-painted boards (We Forget Them Not) and now again to tarps within red frames. As far as content is concerned, the UFF, LPA (“We forget them not – past and present”) and UYM (“They shall not grow old etc”) remain but Tim Collins – a product of re-imaging – is out (see On That Journey) and Eddie The Trooper is in. The side wall of the pub has also been employed for the first time, with more hooded gunmen (see the third image, below). Two small plaques have been added to the outsides of the memorial wall.

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If Our Shores Are Threatened

2021-03-152025-01-02Extramural Activity2 Comments

“If our shores are threatened/We will take up arms/To defend our loyal cause/Our culture and our heritage/Our freedoms and our laws.” Moygashel’s own (William) Wesley Somerville, a member of both the UVF and UDR, was killed by a bomb prematurely exploding as he placed it on the minibus of the Miami Showband in July of 1975. Three members of the band died, one of them Protestant, along with volunteers Somerville and Harris Boyle from Portadown (WP). “He died for Ulster” (on the plaque).

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Copyright © 2021 squire93@hotmail.com
Moygashel Park when injustice becomes law resistance becomes duty mid-ulster brigade
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Still Anti-GFA

2021-03-092025-01-02Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

More anti-Good Friday/Belfast Agreement sentiment, this time from Dungannon, and this time claiming not that support has been withdrawn from the Agreement but that it was not supported in the first place: “Loyalist Eastvale Avenue says ‘No’ to Irish Sea border – Anti-GF 1998, still anfi-GFA 2021”.

Also in this street: memorial plaque to LVF leader Billy Wright.

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Belfast Agreement Null & Void

2021-03-082025-01-02Extramural Activity2 Comments

On Thursday of last week the Loyalist Communities Council, which represents the various loyalist paramilitary groups – all of which are proscribed organisations – in a letter sent to both Micheál Martin and Boris Johnson temporarily withdrew their support for the Good Friday or Belfast Agreement in protest over the NI Protocol that is part of Brexit (Guardian | BBC). These Moygashel UVF boards go further, threatening violence in response to a law seen as unjust.

From left to right: “Ulster ~~1912~~ 2021 – compare with Deserted, Well I Can Stand Alone which shows the date as 1914. Time to decide!” “Our forefathers fought for our freedom and rights. No border in the sea or we continue the fight.” “Belfast Agreement null & void”, “UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade – when injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.”

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Bang Up To Date

2020-11-172025-01-01Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The previous UVF mural in Carrington Street (Volunteering | On Your Side) was paint-bombed in October (Keep It Local) but has been quickly replaced by this computer-generated board showing the Harland & Wolff cranes, a Long Kesh watch-tower, and a hooded gunman from the UVF’s East Belfast Battalion.

Keep It Local

2020-10-122025-01-01Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The UVF mural in Carrington Street has been paint-bombed. Given the location and the extent of the paint, it’s likely that this was the result of some local (PUL) grievance. It will be interesting to see if it is restored, or replaced or painted out.

For the mural in proper form, see Volunteering.

Murdered By Cowards

2020-03-312024-12-28Extramural Activity1 Comment

The “cowards” in this case are the members of the UDA who killed Rockett in front of his girlfriend and 18 month old child in an attack on her house in the lower Oldpark, during the feud between the UVF and UDA, sparked by Johnny Adair’s “loyalist day of culture” and removal of the UVF from the lower Shankill.

In response to the purge (and attacks on the Rex bar), the UVF killed Jackie Coulter (UDA) and Bobby Mahood (formerly of the UVF). Rockett was killed by the UDA in retaliation for Coulter’s death; 1,000 people attended Rockett’s funeral (Irish Times). The feud continued until mid-December (Mirror).

“In proud and loving memory of Vol. Samuel Rockett, ‘B’ Coy. 1st Belfast battalion, Young Citizens Volunteers. Murdered by cowards 23rd August 2000. ‘At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember him.'”