WWI

Ulster Tower Street

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For the anniversary of the Battle Of Albert and the start of the Battle Of The Somme, Tower Street in east Belfast became Ulster Tower Street and residents reproduced the Western Front, with huts of sandbags, canvas coverings for all the front walls, and headlines from the News Letter (“Ulster’s Sacrifice”) and Times (“Britain At War”) of the period. Images of the new murals can be found in A Thought Is Not A Lot.

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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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A Thought Is Not A lot

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Complementing the images from Ulster Tower Street, here are images of the new commemorative boards and their blue backgrounds. The main board features Ulster Tower at Thiepval with a list of battles that the 36th (Ulster) Division was involved in.

The smaller board on the side-wall features a poem from local children: “The Great War took a lot of Pray/It’s hard to say w[h]ere all these brave men lay/A lot of souls still waiting to be found/Buried deep below the ground.//In the fields w[h]ere the bright red poppies grow/Stood men so brave of fight and foe/Some men so young they just didn’t know/A journey with friends they all wanted to go.// When they got there what a different tail [tale] they did tell/Many letters home describing it as hell/Young men put to front to fight/We can only imagine the awful sight.//Fighting beside their mate to keep Britain great/And we still remember them till this date/Nearly one hundred years on/A lot of these great men have gone/Forget them we will not as a thought is not a lot.”

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For Bravery In The Field

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Robert King, of the 12th Royal Irish Rifles, who joined the army from the Ulster Volunteers, was “awarded the Military Medal for gallantry in action on 1st July 1916” at the Somme. The two sides of the medal are shown in the top right, with George V on one side and “for bravery in the field”. The 12th Rifles were drawn from the Central Antrim regiment of the Ulster Volunteers including the Newington area of Larne; King, however, was from Ship Street.

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HMS Hawke

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HMS Hawke was a Royal navy WWI cruiser sunk by German U-boat on October 1st, 1914. It was a training ship, which meant that among the 542 sailors who lost their lives on the Hawke, 75 of them were 16 year-old boys.

Five of the deceased were from the Donegall Road area. This is the first mural in south Belfast’s “Poppy Trail”; in addition to the Hawke, there will be a board for each year of the first world war, and perhaps others for WWII, on the streets off Donegall Road, from Barrington Gardens westward across into the Village.

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Where Is The Reconciliation?

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A fire was lit at the base of the John Henry Patterson mural (see Operation Lion | Godfather Of The Israeli Army) on Beverley Street, prompting the notice on the railings above: “Where is the equality? This historically significant artwork, was attacked & defaced by Irish Republican racists? Where is the reconciliation?”

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The Poppy Trail 1916

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 JP Beadle’s Battle Of The Somme, Attack Of The Ulster Division is reproduced in the 1916 installment of the Poppy Trail in south Belfast. (For more on the painting, see belfastsomme.com.) In addition to listing local men lost in on July 1st – from places such as Roden, Matilda, Kitchener, Barrington, Blythe, Ebor, Rowland, Abingdon, and Combermere Street – it also features an individual from each community who served and died, in this case, Rifleman Paul Irvine from Lower Rockview Street and Private Patrick McGinney from Balkan Street (in the Divis area).

Launched on 2016-06-27; Tele report.

Here are the boards for The Poppy Trail 1914 and The Poppy Trail 1915.

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Among The Fallen

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As part of the Poppy Trail, boards bearing the names, ages, addresses, and service units of Belfast casualties during WWI have been erected on walls and lampposts near their homes. Above: William Bloomer from Matilda Street in south Belfast. Below: Thomas Magowan from Tower Street in east Belfast.

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