physical force

Caırde Agus Comrádaıthe

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“Friends and comrades” – IRA volunteers Brendan Hughes (“The Dark”) and Bobby Sands were leaders of the 1980 and 1981 hunger strikes, respectively. Hughes survived when the first strike was called off after 53 days; Sands died in the ’81 strike after 66 days of fasting. “IRPWA” is the Irish Republican Prisoners’ Welfare Association (Fb | tw); Saoradh (web | tw) is a hard-line left-wing republican party.

The mural to the left shows Palestinian double-amputee Saber Al-Ashkar, protesting as part of the Great March Of Return.

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Westwinds East Belfast

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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.

X06078 2018-08-27 Playground UVF flags+

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Simply The Best

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These  UDA 2nd battalion D company boards are in the lower Kilcooley estate, Bangor. This piece is co-branded as “North Down/West Belfast”, even though it is only metres away from a (North Down/East Belfast) North Down Defenders board. See Ulster Defence Unions for more on the tensions between the rival UDA factions.

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X06091 Ganaway Avenue

Da War Is Not Over Yet

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Well-meaning but simplistic (if not patronising) message from a tourist: «Irish, forget the past.» Local response: “Da war is not over yet.” Response-to-the-response: “Bring it on.” On the nationalist side of the “peace” line at Townsend Street.

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Boom

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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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1912 UVF

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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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South Belfast Volunteers

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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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East East Belfast

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This hooded gunman from the East Belfast UVF – like the series of stencils featured previously in EB UVF – is on a wall in Newtownards’s Westwinds estate. Below is a EB UVF mural at the bottom of Bowtown, not far from the West Belfast UDA mural in Greenwell St. The UVF and UDA also compete in the Glen estate; compare Today’s Local with Our Heritage In Your Hands.

Questions about EB UVF lawlessness in north Down arose over the summer with a “business opportunity” presented to local hostelries (Belfast Live | ITV).

X06083 2018-08-28 East Belfast Battalion+

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Brian Stewart

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13 year-old Brian Stewart died on October 10th, 1976 – 42 years ago today – six days after being hit by a plastic bullet fired by the King’s Own Scottish Borders near his Turf Lodge Home. He was buried three days later, on October 13th – what would have been his fourteenth birthday. (For the long search for justice, see sister Marie Stewart | sceptic peg | saoirse32).

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Decolonisation

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“In memory of our fallen INLA volunteers, upper Springfield area: Hugh Ferguson, Ronnie Bunting, Noel Little, Hugh O’Neill, Micky Kearney, John McColgan, Paddy “Paddybo” Campbell. Comrades: Barry “Baz” McMullan, Sean “Shanto” fleming, Harry O’Hara, Paul Collins, Bernado Brownlee, Emmanuel Kelly, Michael Conlon, Billy Lynch, James “Harpo” Murray, John Kennaway. Saoırse go deo [freedom forever].” Ferguson was the first member of the INLA to die, in 1975 in the feud with the OIRA. Bunting and Little/Lyttle (both Protestants) were shot dead in 1980 in Bunting’s Andersonstown home by masked gunmen from the UDA or SAS with RUC complicity.

Whiterock Road, Belfast, next to the Kevin Lynch – Marian Price – Kevin Lynch wall.

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