Lead The Way

“Welcome to Muckamore, loyalist heartland – lead the way.” “In defence of our heritage and culture.”

In the Muckamore/Ballycraigy areas of Antrim the insignia of the LVF are still in place. “Lead the way” was the slogan of the LVF (see e.g. D01246 for a prominent instance in Ballycraigy). The organisation called a ceasefire and decommissioned some weapons in the years after the Agreement but persists in some form in Antrim (WP).

The Sons Of Ulster also used to use the slogan “Lead the way” (asa described in J1947) but it is not present in the board shown in the recent (2022) Old Ulster’s Battle Cry.

The two boards below are on gables above Woodgreen, which is the site of the bonfire (ig) featured in the second image. They used to claim that it was the biggest bonfire (see C06695) but Craigyhill (in Larne) is more recently the tallest – see Commonwealth Handling Equipment.

There is also a memorial garden to Billy Wright in Ballycraigy – see M05203.

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Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy

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T101994 T01985 T01986 Hollowburn Rd, Limetree Ave, Antrim

Seymour Hill UDA

Queen Elizabeth II 70th/platinum Jubilee banners remain on either side of the UDA board above the Seymour Hill shops, even after her death in September (previously there were two NI Centenary banners). There are orange lilies at the four corners of the UDA emblem.

Across the street is a memorial stone to those who died in The Great War And The Recent Conflict.

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Gertrude Street Defenders

Gertrude Street no longer exists – it was just east of where Wolff Close now is. But the Gertrude Street Defenders LOL 525 (Fb) brought back a former lodge (Lees Temperance/East Belfast Orange) March 2017, with former members of the Gertrude Star flute band (News Letter). For the five-flowered board on the right, see The Flax And The Lily. This pair of boards is on the courtyard fencing around the Westbourne Glentoran Supporters Club, off the Newtownards Road in the old Solway Street.

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The Pride Of Whitehill

This UVF hooded gunman board (above the Pride Of Whitehill flute band (Fb) mural) was previously a memorial to the 36th (Ulster) Division (see They Sleep Side-By-Side) but has now become part of the East Belfast battalion’s markings in Bangor (see Always A Little Further).

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Our Murdered Brethren

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).

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339 Orange Order members killed during the Troubles.

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Deflowered

“Jamie Dornan lost his virginity here”. Perhaps while a student at Methody? Dornan is originally from Holywood (WP). The painter of the orange lily is unknown.

Exchange Place, Belfast city centre. Next to RogueOner’s Minotaur.

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The Flax And The Lily

The orange lily and the (pale blue) flax flower take their place around the Ulster Banner alongside the English rose and Scottish thistle, and the Irish shamrock is retained even in the presence of the lily. The flax is perhaps included because we are in the Factory area of Larne, near the site of a (former) linen mill. The Welsh daffodil is excluded. The detail above is part of a wider board “Boyne Square celebrates 100 years of Northern Ireland”; the flanking emblems of the Boyne Defenders (LOL 1297), Rangers Supporters club (Larne Branch) – which also uses the shamrock – Boyne Square Bonfire Forum, and Larne & District Great War Society and included below; the emblems of three flute bands can be seen in Norman Anderson and The Gunrunners.

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Norman Anderson

RUC Constable Norman Anderson was set upon and executed in 1961 by the IRA on the Fermanagh border as he returned from visiting his Co Monaghan girlfriend (SEFF) but he and his family hailed from Larne and he is remembered by the Constable Anderson Memorial flute band (emblem below), which was formed in the same year (Fb), and the Auld Boys (emblem above). These are two of three flute bands in the Factory area of Larne, along with the Clyde Valley flute band – see The Gunrunners.

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The Orange State

The orange lily began appearing in murals with some frequency in the mid-2000s (with one earlier appearance in Londonderry; compare this to posts with orange lilies at Peter Moloney – Murals and at Extramural Activity). It became part of the logo of the Orange Order in 2007 – see Design Research Group – and there was an attempt to re-brand the Twelfth as “Orangefest” (Irish Times). It is used in this centenary celebration board to make it clear that Northern Ireland was created as a Protestant and unionist state.

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Whiterock FB

The Whiterock flute band (Fb | spotify) was founded in 1962 and the band’s mural in Brookmount Street contains a ‘brief history’ and photographs from different decades, to which was added (on the right) a list of members past and present. The most recent addition to the wall was a memorial – shown below – to band-member Alex Thompson, who died in May 2019 after 56 years in the band. (Also, the advertising hoarding above the mural has come off.)

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