Introduction: popular memory

The centrality of the 36th (Ulster) Division, ‘an unambiguously unionist and Protestant formation’, to unionist/loyalist commemoration of the First World War is well-established. Indeed, it goes beyond that: some school curricula which cover the First World War as part of wider issues sometimes pick out the division as just one, or one of a few aspects of the war, which are mentioned in any depth. For unionists/loyalists, the experiences of the 36th Division on the Somme are central to commemoration, even exclusive. Marking the division's role on 1 July 1916, the first day of the battle of the Somme began almost as soon as it became public knowledge. Although many events on 12 July 1916 had been cancelled in response to a request from the Ministry of Munitions to keep production flowing, there was a five minutes’ silence in Belfast in memory of the dead at 12 noon, and this set the pattern that in future years, 12 July would be linked by many to the Somme. A specific link between Somme commemoration and the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) has similar long-standing roots. Gillian McIntosh observes of writers such as Cyril Falls in the immediate post-war years that ‘celebrating the achievements of the 36th Division was in its own way a celebration of the Ulster Volunteer Force’. Meanwhile, Graham and Shirlow point to a particular growth of Somme commemoration after the 1994 paramilitary ceasefires with the modern UVF's ‘appropriation’ of the Somme. They argue that ‘The Somme is a defining motif of unionist history and identity and the UVF – past and present – is an essential part of that unofficial history.’ This view is widely accepted by academic writers, even if there is more debate over Graham and Shirlow's belief that this is ‘an unofficial history of the protestant people denied to them by the Stormont state and the cult of Britishness’. In contrast, Kris Brown argues that ‘Loyalist commemorations [of the Somme], by word, action and use of symbols, express only a continued attachment to Britishness.’

Whatever view one takes of that debate, there is no question that among unionists/loyalists, Somme commemoration (and specifically the role of the 36th (Ulster) Division) dominates all other commemoration of the First World War. Similarly, there is little to debate about the centrality of the UVF to the formation of the 36th (Ulster) Division.