City/Town

Invictus

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Here is the main part of a new printed mural in the Woodvale area of west Belfast (to be officially launched on Saturday, June 3rd). It celebrates the creation of the Woodvale Defence Association as “Defenders of our community since 1969” which in 1971 merged with other associations to form the UDA, whose youth wing is the UYM (lower middle, “terrae filius” = “sons of the soil”) and which uses “UFF” (upper left, “feriens ego” = “attack to defend”) as a cover for military operation. The final emblem is of the LPA (Loyalist Prisoners’ Association, “quis separabit” = “none shall separate us”). The mural replaced by this one is in the bottom left, while the bottom right contains an image of Long Kesh in 1979. The main photograph is of a 1972 march on the Shankill.

For the side-wall, see Remembering Our Fallen.

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Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Remembering Our Fallen

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Here’s the left-hand side of the UDA mural in Disraeli Street being launched today (June 3rd, 2017). As can be seen most clearly in the final, sideways-on, image, both pieces are a combination of printed poster and attached boards. Lines from Laurence Binyon’s poem For The Fallen of WWI are used: “They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old/Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun/And in the morning we shall remember them.”

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Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Politician, Barrister, Ulsterman

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Sir Edward Carson, 1854-1935, was born and raised in Dublin, and practiced law there for many years, but he is most famously associated with the Unionist campaign against Home Rule and the creation of “a Protestant province of Ulster” and eventually the six-county state of Northern Ireland.

This new piece is by Dee Craig in Ballyclare’s Grange Drive.

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They Gave A Lifetime

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Here is another pair of combined UVF memorial stones – from both WWI and the modern conflict. Above, the fallen comrades of 2nd battalion South Belfast are remembered by their fellow officers and volunteers in the Village’s B Company; below, the garden is dedicated to the “glory of God” in memory of the “sons of Ulster” by “all of their comrades in arms who, by divine grace, were spared to testify to their glorious deeds.” (BelTel and Irish News articles on the unplanned inclusion of modern-day UVF.)

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Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Continuing Conflicts

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Here are two panels and a wide shot of the memorial garden in Frenchpark Street. Above is a verse from John McCrea’s In Flanders Fields. Below is a plaque “to the memory of all those Ulster men and women from the south Belfast area who died during the great wars 1914-18 and 1939-45, and to all those who have lost their lives during the recent troubles and continuing conflicts.”

Previously: They Gave A Lifetime

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Storm Drain All Pain

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“Storm drain – all pain, no gain for residents”. This is perhaps a reference to the major construction project needed to provide drainage for Windsor Park and the Olympia leisure centre – see Water Projects for images of Donegall Avenue and Olympia Avenue during the work.

Tates Avenue, south Belfast

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Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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