Top is a 1916 Societies board (in Rossville Street) announcing a commemoration for Richard Quigley on Easter Saturday; below is a 32 County Sovereignty Movement board (in Eastway) for an Easter Rising commemoration on Easter Monday.
Richie Quigley died on “active service” on April 21st, 1984 when he was hit by debris from a van-bomb that exploded prematurely (UPI). 2014 is the thirtieth anniversary of his death.
Above is a local interpretation of Robert Ballagh’s 1970 rendering of Goya’s The Third Of May 1808 in Glenfada Park, Derry/Doıre, site of four deaths on Bloody Sunday, 1972.
The original commemorates Spanish resistance to the forces of Napoleon (WP). For this Derry version, features from the city’s skyline – the Guildhall, St. Columb’s Cathedral, and an intact Governor Walker column – have replaced the original’s outline of Madrid, and an insignia of the Paras appears on the arm of a soldier.
These are end-of-life images of the murals in Lincoln Court. The right-hand member of the pair, now covered by ivy, depicts scenes from the Ulster Workers’ Strike of 1974; of the four boards that made up the Community Spirit piece only the ‘1980s’ one remains.
International Women’s Day, which dates as far back as 1909, is celebrated every year on March 8th. Above is the 2014 mural marking the day, in the complex of shops behind the Bogside Inn.
These Kilburn Street boards commemorate the “Young Citizen Volunteers Of Ireland” and the battle of the Somme. The text in the side-wall board (shown below) is from the diary of a Somme soldier: “We surge forward. Bayonets sparkle and glint. Cries and curses rent the air. Chums fall, some without a word … and others … Oh, my God! May I never hear such cries again! There goes the YCV flag tied to the muzzle of a rifle. That man had nerve! Through the road just ahead of us we had crossed the sunken road. We could see khaki figures rushing the German front line. The Inniskillings had got at them.”
The larger board, on the right, describes the transition from rebels in 1912 to British Army soldiers in 1914: “On the 17th May 1914 the Young Citizen Volunteers became a battalion of the Belfast regiment of the Ulster Volunteer Force. This formed part of the Ulster Division authorised on 28th October 1914 which officially became the 14th battalion of the Royal Irish Rifles, part of the 109th brigade. The 14th saw action throughout the First World War.”
It includes a quote from Edward Carson, “You will find in your ranks men with the same ideals, men with the same loyalty and the same determination to uphold the rights of their country”, and a quote from VC winner William Fredrick McFadzean, “You people at home make me feel quite proud when you tell me I am the soldier boy of the McFadzeans. I hope to play the game and if I don’t add much lustre to it I certainly will not tarnish it.”
After the Saville report (gov.uk) was published in 2010 and the victims of Bloody Sunday were vindicated (see Vindicated/Ceartaıthe), the PSNI took up its own investigation into the events of Bloody Sunday (January 30th, 1972), which is still on-going. The hoarding above – appealing for “any civilians and former soldiers” who gave evidence to Saville – appeared in Letterkenny Road, Derry.
Peter Moloney Collection 