plaque – Extramural Activity

Herbie McCallum

2019-07-092019-07-09Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The memorial to Brian “Herbie” McCallum at the top of Ainsworth Avenue received a major upgrade late last year, with two new plaques and a mural (shown above) along with a side wall that will be featured in a separate post. The long plaque reads: “June 1993 brought extreme Republican violence and agitation surrounding the annual Orange Whiterock parade, which was travelling its traditional route past this very spot and onto the Springfield Road. The threat being so severe to this community, the 1st Belfast Battalion Ulster Volunteer Force deployed several armed active service units. Herbie being Herbie was first to volunteer for duty. Realising the grenade he had been issued with had malfunctioned and giving absolutely no consideration for his own safety, he carried the device to a safe location, away from men, women and children. This one selfless act costs Herbie his life when the grenade detonated prematurely. Volunteer Brian “Herbie” McCallum died 29th June 1993. Sadly missed by his family friends and comrades. Rest easy soldier your duty is done. For God and Ulster.” McCallum died three days after the explosion.

The plaque from the original memorial (which dates back to 1994) has also been retained (above the one shown next, below): see Some Day Soon We’ll March Proudly On Parade.

Click and click again to enlarge (to 2000 x 1506)

Camera Settings: f4.4, 1/320, ISO 80, full size 4224 x 3180

Click and click again to enlarge (to 1240 x 1650)

Camera Settings: f4.6, 1/80, ISO 200, full size 3645 x 4851

Click and click again to enlarge (to 1800 x 1650)

Camera Settings: f3.5, 1/100, ISO 80, full size 3900 x 3576

text: X06675 X06676 [X06677 ][X06678] X06674 [X06680]

“There is discipline in a volunteer/You can see it when he walks/There is honour in a volunteer,/You can hear it when he talks/There is courage in a volunteer,/You can see it in his eyes/There is loyalty in a volunteer/That he will not compromise.”

“We will remember him. The officers and members of Sweeney’s ‘A’ Company 1st Belfast Battalion Ulster Volunteer Force.”

Billy Hanna

2019-06-212019-06-01Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

“William ‘Billy’ Hanna” murdered 21/6/1978. We will remember. Pride Of Ardoyne FB.” On the 40th anniversary of his death, a memorial plaque and cross were mounted at the top of Ardoyne Road to Billy Hanna, founder member of the Pride Of Ardoyne. The word “murdered” is notable. Hanna was shot in an SAS ambush of a PIRA attempt to bomb the Ballysillan post office depot; it is alleged that the SAS snipers opened fire without warning and discharged 170 rounds (An Phoblacht). An alternative interpretation of the event might put the focus instead on Hanna being caught in the crossfire (BBC-NI) or mistaken for an IRA member (Sutton).

Click to enlarge (to 1900 x 1388)

Camera Settings: f6, 1/100 ISO 125, full size 4764 x 3480

Click to enlarge (to 1800 x 1200)

Camera Settings: f8, 1/800 ISO 400, full size 3888 x 2592

Click to enlarge (to 1200 x 1744)

Camera Settings: f5.1, 1/125 ISO 80, full size 3368 x 4896

X06614 X06612 X06613 h/t Tony Crowley

Shankill Brigadistas

2019-05-312019-05-31Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

After the Nationalist coup in 1936, the UK and US continued to recognise Spain’s Republican government but did not intervene militarily. Individuals from these counties thus participated in the conflict by joining the British and Lincoln battalions of the XV International Brigade, fighting alongside Balkans, Belgians, and Cubans at Jarama, Brunete, and the Ebro river, among other battles. For background on Belfast socialism of the period see this article by Stevie Downes.

“International Brigades – Spanish Civil War 1936 – 39. Commemorating all those who served and died with the XV International Brigade in the fight against fascism including the following Brigadistas from the Shankill area: William Beattie … Bill Henry … William Laughran … Henry McGrath … James Isaac Hillen … Joseph Lowery … Andrew Molyneaux. No pasarán. Unveiled by Tommy and Freddie McGrath, nephews of Henry McGrath, and Baroness May Blood, trade union & community activist. International Brigade Commemoration Committee. Saturday 1st February 2014.”

Previously: Plaque to (Protestant) Beattie and (Catholic) O’Neill | Belfast Socialists marching at Bodenstown (though possibly those from the Shankill were excluded) | Derry Brigadistas | a bust to the International Brigade in Writers Square, Belfast. Also: Guernica | Derry Guernica.

The plaque is in the Shankill Road Library.

Click to enlarge (to 1500 x 2000)

Camera Settings: f5.1, 1/60 ISO 1600, full size 3672 x 4896

X06575

Republican Prisoners Memorial Wall

2019-05-142019-05-20Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

James Connolly was executed on May 12th, 1916. Both the (freshly painted) Connolly plaque shown above and the Martin Meehan mural on the adjacent wall paint the struggle of the republican prisoners and the Provisionals of the ‘Troubles’ as descendants of 1916’s Easter Rising. Several name-plaques have been added to (what is now officially titled) the ‘Republican Prisoners Memorial Wall’ compared to the number seen in September.

For close-ups of the door and sculptured rocks, see Father Time.

Click to enlarge (to full size)

Camera Settings: f8, 1/250, ISO 200, full size 2992 x 2024

Click to enlarge (to full size)

Camera Settings: f8, 1/400, ISO 200, full size 2004 x 3372

Click to enlarge (to 1650 x 1288)

Camera Settings: f8, 1/500, ISO 200, full size 3320 x 2592

Click to enlarge (to 1600 x 1240)

Camera Settings: f8, 1/500, ISO 200, full size 3376 x 2616

X06550 X06549 X06547 X06548

11 Innocent Civilians

2019-05-122019-05-12Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The inquest into the Ballymurphy Massacre – the killings of 11 people from August 9th to 11th, continues, with testimony this past week from former Paratrooper Henry Gow (Irish News | BBC-NI). The image above shows Hugh Mullan being shot from Springmartin while going to the aid of a neigbour, Bobby Clarke; he is waving a white Babygro (BallymurphyMassacre.com). The Paratrooper is distinguished by his red beret.

The mural was originally painted by Risteard Ó Murchú in 2008 and displayed first on the Whiterock Road then around the corner on the Springfield Road; the location of the repainted board is at the Glenalina Road entrance to the area, in the spot of the former 1916 GPO mural (which had lasted seventeen years before being whitewashed in 2017).

“This plaque is dedicated to the 11 innocent civilians murdered by members of the British Parachute regiment in August 1971. Fr Hugh Mullan, Frank Quinn, Noel Phillips, Joan Connolly,

Danny Teggart, Joseph Murphy, Eddie Doherty, John Laverty, Joseph Corr, Paddy McCarthy, John McKerr. Donated by the Frank McCann Cumann, Hamilton [Scotland] (Fb).”

Click to enlarge (to full size)

Camera Settings: f8, 1/200, ISO 200, full size 3888 x 2592

Click to enlarge (to 1800 x 1200)

Camera Settings: f8, 1/400, ISO 200, full size 3888 x 2592

Click to enlarge (to full size)

Camera Settings: f8, 1/200, ISO 200, full size 2886 x 2592

X06558 X06557 X06559

Unknown Soldier

2019-02-042019-02-04Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

As time passes, volunteers who survived the Troubles are being taken by natural causes. There are thousands of such people and it is not clear on what grounds some will be publicly commemorated and others not – it might as simple as whether surviving friends and family take the pains to do so. See, for example, the plaques of republican ex-prisoners being added to a wall in Ardoyne (Door Into The Dark). The plaques above “In loving memory of Volunteer Dennis/Denis Brine, associated with Glasgow Red Hand Commandos” are in the lower Shankill estate.

Click to enlarge (to 1500 x 2000)

Camera Settings: f4.5, 1/80, ISO 200, full size 3672 x 4896

Click to enlarge (to 1400 x 955)

Camera Settings: f3.3, 1/60, ISO 80, full size 4488 x 3060

text: X06451 X06452

We Forget Them Not

2018-12-172018-12-17Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Three of the UDA/UYM/LPA murals in Kenbaan Street (see We Forget Them Not and Tomorrow Belongs To Us) have been replaced by the spray-painted boards shown here and the wall of the memorial garden repainted. The red colour-scheme matches the Tim Collins board to the left.

Click to enlarge (to 1800 x 1800)

Camera Settings: f3.3, 1/100, ISO 80, full size 3672 x 2672

Click to enlarge (to full size)

Camera Settings: f3.3, 1/60, ISO 100, full size 4022 x 2154

Click to enlarge (to full size)

Camera Settings: f3.5, 1/80, ISO 125, full size 4387 x 2067

Click to enlarge (to 2000 x 1494)

Camera Settings: f3.6, 1/125, ISO 80, full size 4740 x 3540

text: X06347 X06346 X06344 X06348 [X06345] [X06349] [X06350]

The Proclamation

2018-09-032018-09-04Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

Robert Ballagh’s 1916 Proclamation was first painted as a mural by Mo Chara Kelly and Risteard Ó Mhurchú in 1991 for the 75th anniversary of the Easter Rising (see Cáisc 1916 which also contains the Ballagh piece). That version stood for ten years on the Whiterock Road. It has reproduced again in Ard An Lao above the hunger strikers, after the removal of several plaques (see All Our Dead). “With special thanks to Hugo Óg Wilkinson”.

Click to enlarge (to 2400 x 1800)

Camera Settings: f3.7, 1/800, ISO 80, full size 4896 x 3672

text: X06110 our revenge will be let there be no bitterness

Getta Warszawskiego

2018-08-182018-09-15Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

In November, 1940, approximately 400,000 Polish Jews were confined to an area of 1.3 square miles in northern Warsaw – the Jewish Ghetto – encircled by a wall topped with barbed wire begun in April. From there, they were transported to the concentration camps, as many as 250,000 in the summer of 1942. The uprising of April and May 1943 was met with a German campaign to raze the ghetto, which they succeeded in doing. The wall between two houses on the southern border stands to this day within sight of the skyscrapers of modern Warsaw as a memorial to the dead.

Click to enlarge (to full size)

Camera Settings: f3.5, 1/80, ISO 1000, full size 4521 x 2011

Click to enlarge (to 2400 x 1800)

Camera Settings: f3.7, 1/80, ISO 1000, full size 4896 x 3672

Click to enlarge (to 2400 x 1800)

Camera Settings: f4, 1/80, ISO 1600, full size 4896 x 3672

Click to enlarge (to 2400 x 1800)

Camera Settings: f4, 1/100, ISO 80, full size 4896 x 3672

text: X06037 X06036 X06038 X06039 between Złota and Sienna

Pride Of Ballymacash

2018-07-232018-07-15Extramural ActivityLeave a comment

The Pride Of Ballymacash flute band, formed in 2011 from the Pride Of Prince William (bottom left) and Ballymacash Young Conquerors (bottom right), uses the emblem of the 36th (Ulster) Division, in the centre of the mural. In the background on the left is the Thiepval Memorial and, on the right, the UDR memorial statue in Market Square, Lisburn. To the left (in the second image) is a UDA plaque “In memory of fallen comrades Ballymacash B coy D battaltion, South Belfast Brigade. Quis separabit.” For a close-up of the memorial on the ground, see Death & Life.

Click to enlarge (to 2200 x 1506)

Camera Settings: f32, 1/80, ISO 320, full size 5208 x 3566

Click to enlarge (to 1305 x 2000)

Camera Settings: f32, 1/60, ISO 160, full size 3664 x 5616

Click to enlarge (to 2400 x 1660)

Camera Settings: f32, 1/30, ISO 100, full size 5412 x 3744

text: X04999 X06001 X04998

	Sarah McQuillan on Stop The Genocide Of Yemeni…
	danielwalldammit on Méabh
	John Doherty on Float
	The Battle Of Talave… on Talavera 1809
	Football Heroes… on The Duke Of Windsor

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: