WWI soldiers from the 36th (Ulster) Division go over the top and make their way through the barbed wire. Not a mural but a painted sky on a memorial stone. Part of the Owenroe memorial garden in Bangor.
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Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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“We have slain him but we fear him/As we stand in silence now/For the hero light still lingers/Like a lantern on his brow. And the wiles of witchcraft jeer him/With the phantoms of our dead/As they moil like may mosquitoes/Round his torn and bleeding head.” Cuchulainn is invoked as a “defender of Ulster” on the UDA memorial stone in the Kilcooley estate. The Red Hand Commando and UVF stones are shown below. The three paramilitary stones were added independently of the WWI garden (BelTel).
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Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X04095 X04093 X04096 owernroe drive the death call of cuchulainn champion of ulster the sons of ulster’s best who have stood the test? would you take the oath with hand held high are you prepared to die to keep our ulster free it is up to you and me god save ulster is our cry would you weep if i should die remember me when poppies fall for our ulster i gave all tell me i have lived my life well and it has not all been in vain
Here are two final images from the memorial garden in Kilcooley. It seems that the combination of WWI imagery (compare this entry and Across The Wire) and paramilitary memorials (To Keep Our Ulster Free), was not the plan approved by the Department of Social Development, which contributed funds to the project (Belfast Telegraph). A wide shot of the whole is included below.
According to an article in the Tele last Friday (2017-04-21), the Housing Executive has a list of over 100 memorial on Executive-owned land that it considers illegal. The list itself does not seem to be available and so it is not not known if the Kilcooley garden is one of these.
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Here are two wide shots of a long wall from the Bangor Protestant Boys Flute Band (Fb). Many of the panels are related to WWI. For the Somme panel on the left, see Ulster Volunteers; for three of the flags on the right, see North Down Battalion. Right of centre is an emblem for the band itself: the lion and the unicorn on either side of cross rifles and the red hand of Ulster on an oval.
For the previous (mural) version, see Bangor Protestant Boys.
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Recruiting for the Ulster Volunteers in Down was so successful that it was divided into four areas (North, South, East, and West), each with a battalion, and the North down battalion comprised 15 companies (History Ireland). The Down battalions became the 13th battalion of the (108th Brigade) Royal Irish Rifles in WWI. The YCV (Young Citizen Volunteers) was formed separately (in 1912) but joined the Volunteers in May 1914, before becoming the (109th Brigade) 14th battalion of the Royal Irish Rifles when the war broke out (WP). Both began their campaigns at Boulogne-Sur-Mer in October, 1915 (WP).
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X04089 owenroe dr somme thiepval beaumont hamel st quentin ypres messines arras passchendaele cambrai
This is another part of a long ‘Bangor Protestant Boys Flute Band’ wall in Kilcooley: the shield of the 36th (Ulster) Division – the Union flag and Irish harp above a red hand on a field of shamrocks – on a garland of orange poppies and WWI battlefields on a purple ribbon – orange and purple being the colours of the Ulster Volunteers.
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X04088 somme theipval messines fricourt passchendaele st. quentin ypres flanders
Here is a small board in Bangor from the North Down Defenders flute band (Fb), unusual due to the modified Ulster banner with clenched red hand in the centre. Surrounding it are the flags of the LPA, UDA, UFF, and UYM.
Kearney Gardens, Kilcooley, Bangor
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Good walls for murals can be hard to come by. Here are three ‘reservations’, two from Newtownabbey and one from Bangor, claiming walls for the UVF, UDA, and RHC, respectively.
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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03024 X03025 X02967 ulster volunteer force defence association red hand commando
The UVF and YCV flags together with the Ulster Banner and Union Flag make up this Bangor Protestant Boys flute band (Fb) mural.
Below is a vintage Protest Action Force triangular board on the adjacent building.
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A tarpaulin celebrating the North Down Grenadiers (Fb) flute band has been added above the Red Hand Commando panels on the front of this house in Bangor’s Whitehill neighbourhood. (Compare the image above to M06398.) The emblems of both groups are very similar, featuring a red hand with wings. As well as the RHC emblem on the front gate, there is also a stone on the left dedicated to D. Company volunteers.
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X02787 Audentes fortuna iuvat – fortune favors the brave at the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them in memory of our fallen volunteers north down brigade D. Company lest we forget red hand wings star
Seosamh Mac Coille Collection 