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1/6 We're all familiar with the Carson statue at the top of Gunrunner Avenue (and you're still wondering why loyal Ulster has been a basket case for 100 years, bless). But I've never examined the four plaques on the plinth close up.
2/6 Head-on first, moving right. Signing the Covenant, 1912. Jamie Bryson second from right. An act of defiance, disloyalty and insurrection. We're all at it. More symbolic than Carson actual criminality, but not likely to foster cohesion. As we've seen to our cost.
3/6 Reviewing the UVF. Not the illegal one that sledgehammered doors to kill Catholics, the one that smuggled in guns to fight the Brits. (I pity anyone coming to this subject for the first time.)
4/6 'Erected by the Loyalists of Ulster as an expression of their love...' (Not manly love, of course, the gruffly affectionate punch-in-the-shoulder-after-a pogrom kind.) 'Dum spiro spero' - 'While I breathe I hope'. Says it all, really.
5/6 The famous sold-out Give My Head Peace show at the Ulster Hall in 1912. The jokes have lasted pretty well. Carson on canopy waving unidentified fleg. Mervyn and Uncle Andy touting. Tickets.
6/6 On the four benches there's a total of 16 floozies in the nip. Do these get covered up at demos in consideration of good-living loyal Ulster folk? Let's hope so. Wouldn't want my pastor exposed to the exposed.
