physical force

Then And Now, 1912 – 1987

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“They fought then for the cause of Ulster, we will fight now.” The 75th anniversary of the Ulster Volunteers is celebrated in this mural in Dover Place, west Belfast. On the left of the Northern Island is an Ulster Volunteer in period (1912) garb standing on a patch of ground, on the right, a modern (1987) paramilitary in hood and fatigues standing on a city footpath. The Ulster Volunteers as such did not fight for Ulster – they instead joined the British Army and fought “for King and Empire” in WWI, after which Home Rule was applied only to 26 counties of Ireland and Northern Ireland was created and remained within the UK.

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Copyright © 1988 LC
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Shankill Supports All The Loyalist Prisoners

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Both UVF and UDA emblems (as well as PAF and YCV) in the quadrants of an Ulster banner shield with Northern Island in the middle. Union flags on the side and barbed wire above. No 5 of 9 on the south side of Percy Place, Belfast.

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Copyright © 1988 Peter Moloney
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70th Anniversary Of The Somme

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On the left of the lightning bolt are the soldiers of the 36th Ulster division (U.V.F.) R.I.R (Royal Irish Rifles) on the western front in 1916; on the right are “UVF prisoners of war, Long Kesh”.

A similar board was painted in the UVF compounds of Long Kesh. Of it, Billy Hutchinson (in his 2011 piece “Transcendental Art“) said, “My favourite mural was one inspired by the British anti-war poet, Siegfried Sassoon. Suicide In The Trenches depicts a UVF volunteer split down the middle by a bolt of lightning. Half of him depicts a 36th Ulster Division soldier under heavy fire in a rainsoaked WW1 trench. The other half shows a ’70s volunteer incarcerated behind barbed wire and over-shadowed by watch towers.” (The piece – W2021.1.8 in the Ulster Museum collection – includes the last verse from Sassoon’s Suicide In The Trenches.)

Hutchinson also describes the importance of the Orange Cross welfare organisation in selling prisoner art produced inside the prison. Stevie McCrea of the RHC was killed in the Orange Cross in 1989 – see Stevie McCrea.

Craven Street, west Belfast

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Copyright © 1988 LC
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