Eddie’s Remains

As recorded earlier (in Digital Eddie), the 2016 Eddie The Trooper laminate in Ebrington Terrace, Londonderry, began disintegrating as soon as it went up. These images show that he has completely gone, exposing scraps of the former Eddie. A few Eddies still stalk the land, most notably in Carrickfergus – see the Visual History page for Eddie.

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We Forget Them Not

Three of the UDA/UYM/LPA murals in Kenbaan Street (see We Forget Them Not and Tomorrow Belongs To Us) have been replaced by the spray-painted boards shown here and the wall of the memorial garden repainted.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.

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Dee Street Remembers

This sequence of UDA “memorial” murals along Island Street replaces a similar sequence from roughly 2005. Novel features are the poppies featured throughout and the use of Lawrence Binyon’s poem For The Fallen in the third panel (see below). The image above – the left-most of the four – depicts two men standing in reflection upon an above-ground grave, also symbolic of the fallen of World War I, but the mourners are modern UDA volunteers.

Island Street, east Belfast

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Simply The Best

These  UDA 2nd battalion D company boards are in the lower Kilcooley estate, Bangor. This piece is co-branded as “North Down/West Belfast”, even though it is only metres away from a (North Down/East Belfast) North Down Defenders board. See Ulster Defence Unions for more on the tensions between the rival UDA factions.

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North Down West Belfast

Here are two UDA/UFF “North Down – West Belfast” boards, one in Clandeboye Road, Bangor (above) and the other in Lenamore Park, Newtownards (below). The UDA in North Down is split into two factions, one associated with the Shankill (west Belfast) UDA and the other with the East Belfast UDA. The former is based primarily in Newtownards, but not exclusively, as the board above shows. It is also remarkable for its use of hooded gunmen in “active” poses.

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Welcome To The Jungle

Dee Stitt of the UDA resigned last week as chair of Charter NI citing the strain on his family caused by negative media attention (BBC-NI | Irish News). At the end of 2016, Stitt was criticised for remarks describing his North Down Defenders (Fb) as the “homeland security” of the area and describing working-class estates as “jungles” in which there is always a “big guy” (Guardian video 8 min mark ff.| BelTel | ITV) . The mural above does not directly indicate ties to the UDA/UFF, except for the red fist. For a more explicit NDD board further down the estate, with UDA, UFF, UYM, and LPA flags, see North Down Defenders.

For the recent tension between UDA factions in north Down, see Ulster Defence Unions.

Replaces the mural to VC winner Sir Edward Bingham.

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