May 2015 — March past Belfast City Hall of the 36th Ulster Division
On the outbreak of the 1st World War an Ulster Division was formed of Lord Kitchener’s New Army. It was made up of members of the Ulster Volunteer Force who formed 13 additional battalions, with 3 existing regiments, The Royal Irish Fusiliers, The Royal Irish Rifles and The Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, as well as The Young Citizen Volunteers. Training camps were built at Clandeboye, Ballykinlar, and Newtownards in the East, and Finner on the Donegal coast. The people of Ulster were given an opportunity to see their Division as a whole on 8th May 1915. A March Past took place through Belfast, the salute being taken by Major-General Sir Hugh McCalmont at the City Hall. It was a fine day; the City was dressed in bunting, and the main streets were filled with a mass of spectators, who had come by special trains from all over the Province. The troops were to remain two more months longer in Ireland, but that was the real farewell of Ulster to the Division she had given so nobly to the nation.
An enormous loyalist parade snaked its way across Belfast on Saturday afternoon, in remembrance of the 36th Ulster Division.
Loyalist parade through Belfast
Police were unable to provide an estimate for the day’s turnout when asked by the News Letter.
“It must have been up around what the Orange Order have on the Twelfth of July”, he said.
Among those on the march were Orangemen and Apprentice Boys from as far away as Londonderry, Fermanagh and possibly Co Cavan, with some representatives of Somme associations in Scotland and England also present.
The parade also featured ‘soldiers’ on horseback, an old-fashioned ambulance, and a Jeep-type vehicle with a Maxim-style machine gun mounted on the back of it.
Mr Hill, 55-year-old chairman of Lagan Village Somme Society, said the horses themselves appeared to have proved a hit with camera-toting tourists.
It was staged in the name of the 36th Ulster Division Memorial Association.
“The date wasn’t chosen, as such – history dictated it,” he said.
The event marked the departure from Belfast – on May 8, 1915 – of the Ulster Division.
A great many never saw Ulster again.
“It is just to remember the fallen, our forefathers, and the sacrifices they made,” said Mr Hill.
“I think it was nice; it was done in a very orderly, dignified fashion. People are remembering World War One now. It’s not just one side; it’s both sides. All the communities lost fathers, sons, brothers in those days.”
While he said it would “probably be right” to describe the parade as being a loyalist/unionist one, he stressed that any community groups or associations were welcome to attend.
To give some scale of the cost involved, he said his own Ulster Division uniform alone had cost around about £250, with the boots costing another £75.
There were hundreds, if not thousands, wearing similar period dress on the streets.
Asked why they had opted for May 9 instead of 8, Mr Hill said: “If we had it on Friday, when people were trying to get to work and come home from work, it would have been total bedlam.”
He said the ‘no alcohol’ rule had been adhered to by those involved, and said “the only so-called restriction” placed on the parade was that only hymns should be played outside St Matthew’s chapel at the Short Strand.