The Boy Soldiers

Here are images from the four panels that comprise the WWI memorial in Mount Vernon, showing men attacking (Thiepval?) wood, the battlefields around Messines, a soldier approaching a church with a spire, and back-to-back memorials to John Condon, the Waterford [city] “boy soldier”, who died aged 14 in a gas attack – “his memory is kept alive as a symbol of the futility of war” – and William McFadzean, who won a VC for throwing himself on a dislodged box of hand grenades.

At this time (2012) the boards on the outside wall had been taken down. They would later be restored – see X06017, which also has the reverse of one the panels.

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Copyright © 2012 Peter Moloney
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Help For Heroes

“Remember the fallen, care for the living”. Five boards arranged into a single piece in Ebor Street, south Belfast. The large bottom panel features a silhouette of a (staged) photograph taken in Basra (DailyMail) of a soldier on a stretcher giving the ‘thumbs up’ sign.

Ebor Street, Village, south Belfast

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Copyright © 2012 Peter Moloney
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Mícheál Mac Dáıbhéıd

“2012 Centenary year” – a history of Michael Davitt’s GAA (Belfast) can be found at its web site. Davitt was a central figure in the IRB, argued for land reform, and was an MP (WP | VP); he was one of the three original patrons of the GAA, along with Archbishop Croke and Charles Stewart Parnell (Cork GAA). The mural is at the club’s premises in Clonard Street; home games are played at St Mary’s Gardens.

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Copyright © 2012 Peter Moloney
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Ar Aghaıdh Lınn

Cú Chulaınn stands dying. In addition to the four provinces in the corners, the four colours of man can be seen in the apex (as a background to Ireland). Tuan the hawk historian, who has seen all of the conquests of Ireland, flies overhead. (Both Tuan and the four colours are familiars of Mo Chara Kelly.)

“Ar aghaıdh lınn” [Onward! or Let’s go!]

Glenbawn Avenue, Belfast

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Copyright © 2011 Peter Moloney
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Ulster’s Brave Young Men

Three panels from left to right: “Avenue Road Somme Association – in memory of the fallen 36th Ulster [sic] Division”; “Ulster Volunteer Force – Ulster’s Brave Young Men”; “They whom this scroll commemorates, who at the call of King and Country, left all that was dear to them, endured hardship, faced danger and finally passed out of the sight of men in the path of duty and self sacrifice giving up their own lives that others might live in freedom. Those that came after see to it that their names are not forgotten.”

Avenue Road, Lurgan

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Copyright © 2011 Peter Moloney
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