“James McCurrie – Robert Neill memorial garden – commissioned by East Belfast Historical and Cultural Society 2003.” “Murder Most Foul – 27th/28th June 1970. As I look back in my mind’s eye/I see a night that makes me cry/That Saturday started like any day/People shopping and children at play//Later that night at darkness fell/PIRA opened up like something from hell/Man, woman and child had to dive/It’s a wonder so ma[n]y escaped alive//A woman was shot at Wolff Street/Blood on the ground, all around her feet/As the ambulance arrived to take her away/A wounded man inside was heard to pray//From St. Matthew’s Chapel with murderous intent/PIRA kept firing till every bullet was spent/From the tower where the bells kept their silent peel/It’s from here PIRA shot dead Bobby Neill//Making his way home in a hurry/PIRA shot dead Jimmy McCurrie/As he lay at the Beechfield School Gate/The wounded kept rising till it reached twenty-eight//When I look back in the light of day/There can be no compromise with the IRA/The date should be burned in our brain/East Belfast cannot let this happen again – W. J. Magee – 2002”. This is a poetic account of the Battle Of St Matthew’s, in which three people died, including James McCurrie and Robert Neill. Tommy Reid (in the plaque on the left) was hit by a projectile earlier in the day on the Springfield Road and died six days later. Loughins, Gould, and Kincaid (in the plaque on the right) were killed by the Provisionals on the Crumlin Road that same afternoon.

Newtownards Road, east Belfast

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Copyright © 2005 Peter Moloney
M02366 M02365 M02364 M02363
Copyright © 2009 Peter Moloney
M04858 (exterior plaque) [M04857]