The 1915 board in the ‘Poppy Trail’ series in south Belfast focuses on the Gallipoli campaign, claiming that “more men from Ireland died there than from Australia and New Zealand.” The ship on the left-hand side is the River Clyde, a converted collier, carrying men from the 1st Royal Dublin and 1st Royal Munster Fusiliers, who were decimated as they tried to reach shore — “only 372 of the original 900 1st Royal Munster Fusiliers remained”.

As with the 1914 board, the 1915 board includes the stories of men from both south and west Belfast, in this case, Joseph Wilson, who hailed from Donegall Road and died in Belgium, and Michael Magill, from the Divis area, who died at Gallipoli.

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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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HMS Hawke was a Royal navy WWI cruiser sunk by German U-boat on October 1st, 1914. It was a training ship, which meant that among the 542 sailors who lost their lives on the Hawke, 75 of them were 16 year-old boys.

Five of the deceased were from the Donegall Road area. This is the first mural in south Belfast’s “Poppy Trail”; in addition to the Hawke, there will be a board for each year of the first world war, and perhaps others for WWII, on the streets off Donegall Road, from Barrington Gardens westward across into the Village.

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