District Meeting

Tonight the lodge attended the meeting of Portglenone Independent Loyal Orange District Lodge No. 4, in our neighboring hall Killcoogan. It was a great meeting with plans in place for a range of events this years and even next.

There was a presentation of a framed certificate to mark the District’s participation in a parade of banners which marked the centenary of the signing of the Covenant. The event was a world record for the number of banners on parade, with the District bannerette proudly on display.

Other events to commemorate the Centenary of the Home Rule period were discussed and planned with the next in May this year. Our own Somme preparations are under way for 2016 as we host the Twelfth that year.

We are running a bus to the parade in Belfast on 9th May and hope to see many members on parade as we mark this historic event.

March Past Belfast City Hall
36th Ulster Division march past Belfast City Hall on the 8th May 1915 before heading to England for training and then on to the battle fields of Europe.

In 1915, the Division moved to Seaford, on the Sussex coast of England. This was the first time that many of the men had been outside their native Ireland. Kitchener inspected the Division there on 27 July 1915, and later remarked to Carson “your Division of Ulstermen is the finest I have yet seen”

In October 1915 after several months of preparation in England, men of the 36th Ulster Division sailed across the Channel and began to disembark in France. The soldiers, drawn from all parts of the nine counties of Ulster, had previously trained at Finner Camp in Donegal, Ballykinlar in County Down, and the Clandeboye Estate near Bangor. All were volunteers with an overwhelming majority of them in their late teens and early twenties and, while many perhaps sought adventure and a chance to see some of the world beyond the confines of their own home towns and villages, they believed absolutely that their cause in going to war to free France and Belgium from German oppression and invasion was just and honourable.

Most of the battalions and other divisional units travelled to Belfast on the day preceding the parade. On the morning of the parade the men of 108th Brigade, including the 9th Royal Irish Fusiliers, travelled by eight trains from Newtownards and Bangor; the last train arrived in Belfast at a little after 8.00am.

The entire Division, numbering nearly 17,000 men, formed up at Malone with 107th Brigade on the right. Beside it were the men of the Divisional Troops—Royal Engineer Field Companies and the Divisional Signal Company, the Cavalry Squadron and Cyclist Company and the men of the Field Ambulances and the Army Service Corps. Next was 108th Brigade and then 109th Brigade on the left, nearest the Malone Road. The Division was inspected by the well respected officer and former MP for North Antrim, Major General Sir Hugh McCalmont KCB, CVO. After the review, the Ulster Division marched through the city centre.

Along the route the streets were decked out with bunting and flags and crowded with local people and the family and friends of those on parade. During the march past at City Hall, which lasted for over one and a half hours, the salute was taken by the General alongside the Mayor. The parade was attended by Sir Edward Carson, who had travelled from London to see it. By 9.00pm 108th Brigade was back at Clandeboye having returned by eight trains to Bangor and Newtownards.