These are images from 2011 of UVF/RHC murals and small boards in Bloomfield, Bangor, many seen previously in 2007 (North Down RHC | Red Hand Commando | UVF For God And Ulster | Simply The Best | UFF Quis Separabit). (The UDA mural in North Down UFF also remains.)
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Copyright © 2011 Peter Moloney
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Red Hand Commando boards on the newsagent’s in the middle of Conlig, a village on the road between Bangor and Newtownards.
Plus “Conlig Orange Hall 3rd October 1970 LOL 695 LOL 862 RBP 632”
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Copyright © 2011 Peter Moloney
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The mural replaces one to the UVF’s Platoon 5 , A Co., and the memorial stone is dedicated to it (and not to the WWI soldiers from the 36th (Ulster) Division who died in the charge from Thiepval Wood, July 1st, 1916): “This stone is dedicated to the memory of the fallen volunteers of No. 5 platoon A company 1st Belfast battalion Ulster Volunteer Force. ‘As poppy petals gently fall/Remember us who gave our all/Not in the mud of foreign lands/Nor buried in the desert sands//In Ulster field and farm and town/Fermanagh’s lanes and Drumlin’d Down/We died that violent death should cease/And Ulstermen might live in peace’ Lest we forget.” For the side walls, see Thiepval St.
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Copyright © 2011 Peter Moloney
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“A true soldier – Big Bill Campbell”, leader of the UVF’s 1st Scottish battalion. Campbell (and Von, to whom a plaque would later be added below Campbell’s) were imprisoned for bombing Glasgow pubs in 1979 and Campbell is suspected of involvement of the McGurk’s Bar bombing in 1971.
The Campbell plaque was originally on the Northland St mural of the Shankill West Belfast 1st Batt A Coy 5th Plat before it was reimaged as a Thiepval memorial mural. The plaque is added to the ‘People’s Army’ mural on the Shankill at the Rex Bar.
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Copyright © 2011 Peter Moloney
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This 2009 memorial garden in Owenroe Drive, Bangor caused controversy when built using Housing Executive funds as it was intended to commemorate only the dead of WWI. In addition, it contains headstones to members of the UDA (on which Cuchulainn is invoked as a “defender of Ulster”), RHC, and UVF (BelTel).
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Copyright © 2011 Peter Moloney
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“In memory of our fallen volunteers North Down Brigade D. Company [Red Hand Commando]. Lest we forget.”
Whitehill Pass, Bangor
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Copyright © 2011 Peter Moloney
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Whitehill, Bangor, mural commemorating Jim Johnston, Stephen Pollock, Thomas (“Kaneo”?) Kane of the Red Hand Commando. Johnston was shot in 2003 (Guardian); all three are presumably post-peace deaths associated with the Pride Of Whitehill flute band (Fb).
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Copyright © 2011 Peter Moloney
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UVF and YCV emblems in Davys Street, Carrickfergus.
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Copyright © 2010 Peter Moloney
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A vintage “UVF – release the prisoners” stencil on Drumadoon Drive, Ballybeen.
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Copyright © 2010 Peter Moloney
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David Trimble was leader of the UUP and first First Minister of the new Assembly. This Ballybeen graffiti might date back to that period (1998-2005), as the issue of IRA decommissioning led to suspensions of the parliament and Trimble’s own (temporary) stepping-down.
Ballybeen Square, Dundonald
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Copyright © 2010 Peter Moloney
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Peter Moloney Collection 