Belfast - War Memorials

This one I might have expected if I'd really thought about it.

In Dublin, I can recall having seen one war memorial - possibly two. In Belfast, they were everywhere. Everywhere. In churches, on murals, in alleys between buildings, everywhere. The majority of them, that I saw, were for World War II - during which the Republic of Ireland was neutral, while Northern Ireland, still part of of the United Kingdom, fought on the side of the allies. In WWI, which killed off nearly a generation of Britain's men, the Republic of Ireland was in the process of hammering out the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which, in 1919, gave Ireland its independence from Great Britain.

I honestly never thought about Dublin and its part in the World Wars. But when you go to Belfast, you can't help thinking about the wars. There are heartfelt, thoughtful, tear-inducing memorials everywhere.

These are from the inside of St. Anne's:

This cask holds all the names of the men from Belfast who died in WWI

The verse references is the one that goes, "No greater love is there than this: than that a man dies to save his friends." It shows up on a later memorial.

This cross was made from the nails of Coventry Church, which was destroyed by bombs.

List of the Belfast men who died in WWII.

 This was my favorite one:

The first American troops to land in Europe in preparation for D-Day (June 6, 1944) landed in Belfast in April of 1942. An American flag was presented to the American commander to mark the event. That flag needed replacement, so the one above was donated. Like the original, it only has 48 stars for 48 states, because Alaska and Hawaii hadn't joined yet.

That stupid flash - I couldn't get it not to reflect. But that verse at the end - beautiful.

This was part of a "Garden of Reflection"

It's referring to a German bombing of Belfast.

There were many more, but I didn't snap pictures of all of them. There was one that I was pretty sure I had taken a picture of, but I can't find it anywhere.