I can answer most knowledgeably regarding Loyalist groups - although it should cover both groups (just not the examples of imagery). Essentially the murals perform two and a half functions: they position the ideology/belief of the group in a physical/spatial sense, advertising paramilitary strength to both external and internal populations (this is the half point), and they also serve to legitimise the cause of paramilitaries - particularly by going beyond the gable and mimicking the format of war memorials.

Loyalist paramilitary groups (the UDA, UVF and their subsiduaries) have sought to subvert the imagery of the Somme, as a history toolkit to legitimise their cause and proclaim their position to Northern Irish authorities. Gable murals are found in Unionist and Nationalist communities in Belfast and across Northern Ireland. These political murals rose to prominence in the mid-1980s, they not only represent geographic control or borders but also aspects of prevailing internal ideology. In Unionist areas murals emphasize unionism’s storied history in Northern Ireland, but as images of King William III and the Boyne have gone out of fashion they have been replaced by subtle and overt references to the Somme and the 36th. Perhaps the most common, co-opted image is the recognisable silhouettes of men in brodie helmets stood in relief against an orange haze evoking war and fire. Subtle images should not be forgotten, however, as the presence of 36th (Ulster) Division flags, references to Thiepval Wood, and the Young Citizens Volunteers are abundant. The use of these various images and typography constructs an artifact to an imagined community, one that suggests outward uniformity of opinion.

Although these also have an internal audience; paramilitaries have their own rivalries and territories. Over these territories they need to be seen to be establishing some form of control. The divergent political approaches of Loyalist paramilitaries have sparked internecine violence in the past; post 1998 these differences have revolved around support for and, opposition to, the Belfast Agreement. An obvious visual point of disagreement and feuding has centred on the Somme. During a feud on the Shankill in the early-2000s iconography of the battle was present only on the ideological side, and geographical area, of the UVF. Dominic Bryan noted the absence of Somme memory in those areas associated with the UDA as a ‘lack of remembrance’. This appears to be changing, however, perhaps in response to the legitimacy the connection has offered the UVF during the current climate of centenaries: for example, the UDA approved a new Loyalist Community Council flag in 2016 (the flag showing crests of the UDA and UVF alongside the 36th (Ulster) Division) and current mural activity, for instance a new gable on Tavanagh Street in The Village.

Additionally, paramilitary groups have also erected physical artifacts, shrines that mimic the style of regional war memorials. These “gardens of remembrance” list and present the names – and often faces – of those killed in the ongoing Troubles, as though they were the men, lost in battle, their portraits still on the mantle. They commonly goes as far as using the phrase “lest we forget”, such as the Garden of Remembrance on Cherryville Street near the Shankill. By dint of historical abstraction these murals are intended to portray connections between Somme memory and paramilitaries that legitimises these organisations. These artifacts refer to the loyalists’ perceived covenant and contract between Ulster and the United Kingdom: We represent the good Ulstermen who gave their lives for the King; The United Kingdom would be good to remember our dedication and our strength. Through the visual markers of uniforms and flags, names and slogans, modern paramilitaries suggest they are the true defenders of Ulster and its working-class Protestants. Today, the names and photos of dead loyalists continue share a common ground with the Somme fallen within the unionist community. The theatre of Great War commemoration plays out visually on gable walls in East Belfast and on the Shankill.

Essentially, across Belfast, these gable murals and memorials attempt to legitimise the role and ideology of local paramiliaties. Promote their agendas to both an external and internal audience (and thereby illustrate some form of power/control over their territory).

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Jonathan Evershed, Ghosts of the Somme: Commemoration and Culture War in Northern Ireland. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 2018.

Bryan, D. “Forget 1690, Remember the Somme: Ulster Loyalist Battles in the Twenty-first Century.” In Memory Ireland Volume 3: Famine and the Troubles

Carol Gallaher and Peter Shirlow, “The Geography of Loyalist Paramilitary Feuding in Belfast,” Space and Polity 10, no. 2 (2006).

B. Graham and Peter Shirlow, “The Battle of the Somme in Ulster Memory and Identity,” Political Geography 21 (2001).