board

Yes For Unity

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
The IRSP last month (September, 2018) launched a campaign on Facebook, youtube, and twitter to poll various districts on the question of a border poll. “Unity referendum now! British occupation has been a disaster for the people of Ireland. A united Ireland is the way forward for all the people of Ireland.” On the fence around the North Queen Street play park.
Click to enlarge (to 2000 x 1500)
Copyright © 2018 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f5.6, 1/125, ISO 80, full size 4896 x 3672
text: X06162

East East Belfast

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
This hooded gunman from the East Belfast UVF – like the series of stencils featured previously in EB UVF – is on a wall in Bangor’s Westwinds estate. Questions about EB UVF lawlessness in north Down arose over the summer with a “business opportunity” presented to local hostelries (Belfast Live | ITV).
Click to enlarge (to full size)
Copyright © 2018 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f8, 1/160, ISO 200, full size 2542 x 3910
text: X06098

Decolonisation

Extramural Activity1 Comment
“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. Saoirse 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.
Click to enlarge (to full size)
Copyright © 2018 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f8, 1/1000, ISO 400, full size 3297 x 1415
Click to enlarge (to 1250 x 1690)
Copyright © 2018 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f8, 1/400, ISO 400, full size 2592 x 3504
text: X06154 X06153 whiterock road

Freshly Made For You!

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
Leo Boyd (web | previously) resurrected his ‘PSNI ice-cream wagon’ for Culture Night/Hit The North, along with Laura “Lamb” Nelson (profile), and added a trio of winged police land-rovers like wooden ducks ascending along a living-room wallpaper and vintage ice-cream advertising. The piece drew the response shown in the second image, but this was apparently too direct a comment and was quickly painted out.
Both artists are currently members of Vault Artists (web | Fb | ig) (formerly Belfast Bankers).
Click to enlarge (to 2000 x 1500)
Copyright © 2018 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f4.4, 1/250, ISO 80, full size 4896 x 3672

Click to enlarge (to 1600 x 1132)
Copyright © 2018 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f8, 1/200, ISO 800, full size 3664 x 2592

Click to enlarge (to 2170 x 1128)
Copyright © 2018 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f3.9, 1/320, ISO 80, full size 4896 x 2544
text: X06176 [X06172] X06171 [X06170] X06173 [X06168] kent st

Brothers In Arms

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
The 36th (Ulster) Division fought in the Battle Of Albert at the beginning of the Battle Of The Somme (July 1st-13th), and the 16th (Irish) in the battles of Guillemont and Ginchy in September (WP). The 10th (Irish) served at Gallipoli (and later in Greece and Palestine). The scene above, with soldiers from the 36th and 16th hand-in-hand, did not occur at “The Somme 1916”; it could perhaps have taken place at Messines in 1917 (see previously: Messines 1917).
Of the icons along the top, we see from left to right: Scrabo Tower; the green bar badge of the 10th (Irish) Division; the harp of the Connaught Rangers (battalions of which served in 10th and 16th Divisions); the emblem of the Black Watch – Royal Highlanders (the piping soldier right of centre wears a tartan patch of the Black Watch); the shamrock of the 16th (Irish) Division; the Maid Of Erin harp of the Royal Irish Rifles; Helen’s Tower/Thiepval Tower. It’s not clear why the Black Watch is included, as its battalions do not seem to have served with any of the 10th, 16th, or 36th and is a Scottish regiment rather than an Irish one. Please comment/get in touch if you can explain.
Click to enlarge (to 2400 x 1506)
Copyright © 2018 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f5.4, 1/320, ISO 80, full size 4896 x 3073
Click to enlarge (to 2400 x 1800)
Copyright © 2018 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f4.1, 1/500, ISO 80, full size 4896 x 3672
text: X06054 X06055 [X06056] dicksonia dr

Available Here

Extramural Activity1 Comment
On the right of this image there is a European Regional Development Fund plaque (dating back to at least 2008) but we do not have any record of a previous piece in this spot (Main Street, Conlig). It is not likely that it is referring to the Red Hand Commando board. Please get in touch if you have any information. See also the UVF board on the Today’s Local in the Glen estate, Newtownards.
Click to enlarge (to 1800 x 1520)
Copyright © 2018 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f5, 1/200, ISO 80, full size 4294 x 3627
text: X06085

Messines 1917

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
Two panels commemorate the Battle Of Messines in 1917 and the role of nurses in attending to the wounded. This NIHE article says that the two nurses depicted are Annie Colhoun from London-/Derry and Margaret Dewar from Glasgow. “Margaret Dewar lost her life during the battle whilst Annie Colhoun survived and was decorated for her work during the war by the French, Serbians and British Governments.” (This presumably makes her the nurse in the right-hand panel.) An Army Nursing Service page says, however, that they were nurses at Monastir in Macedonia.
“Sub cruce candida” (“under a white cross”) is the motto of the Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps, though at the time of WWI it was Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service. “VAD” stands for “voluntary aid detachment” of the British Red Cross.
The soldiers wear red hands or shamrocks on their arms. The red hand is for the 36th (Ulster) Division and the cap badge in the left panel is of the 36th. The shamrock is the symbol of the 16th (Irish) Division, and the right panel shows the cap badge of the Connaught Rangers whose battalions served in both the 10th (Irish) and 16th (Irish) Divisions in WWI. Both the 36th and 16th fought at Messines (WP).

Click to enlarge (to 1800 x 1776)

Copyright © 2018 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f5, 1/640, ISO 80, full size 3706 x 3635
Click to enlarge (to 2100 x 1992)
Copyright © 2018 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f, 1/, ISO , full size 3767 x 3573
Click to enlarge (to 1800 x 1362)
Copyright © 2018 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f4.2, 1/800, ISO 800, full size  4824 x 3649
text: X06067 X06066 X06065 abbot gdns

Join Republican Sinn Féin

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
This vintage nail-up is in Thames Street, next to the Red Devil. It appears to simultaneously mark the end of (Provisional) Sinn Féin (in 2001 – perhaps because of calls for IRA disarmament) while urging people to join Republican Sinn Féin, which split from PSF in 1986 over the decision to take seats in the Dáil.
Click to enlarge (to 2000 x 2000)
Copyright © 2018 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f5.6, 1/80, ISO 80, full size 3672 x 3672
text: X04769

Our Heritage In Your Hands

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
The Ulster Tower at Thiepval, France, is a replica of Helen’s Tower in Clandeboye, around which the 36th (Ulster) Brigade, formed in August 1914 from the Ulster Volunteers and Young Citizen Volunteers, began their training (see this gallery of images from North Down Museum at BBC-NI). After a year of training in Ireland and England, the Division was deployed to France in September 1915.
In the top corners are two views of the local Scrabo Tower, which can be seen to the right in the wide shot, below. Produced by muraltec.
Click to enlarge (to 2200 x 1776)
Copyright © 2018 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f4.1, 1/250, ISO 80, full size 4356 x 3516

Click to enlarge (to 2400 x 1201)
Copyright © 2018 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f, 1/, ISO , full size 4896 x 2451
text: X06049 [X06050] X06051 [X06052] [X06053]

Today’s Local

Extramural ActivityLeave a comment
A UVF board covers up the diamond tiling in the gable wall of the ViVO supermarket in the Glen Estate, Newtownards.
Click to enlarge (to 2400 x 1590)
Copyright © 2018 Extramural Activity
Camera Settings: f3.5, 1/500, ISO 80, full size 4620 x 3060
text:  X06048