College old boy’s UDR memorial unveiled

The bronze Memorial of a UDR Soldier and Greenfinch was erected in Market Square Lisburn in memory of the 50,000 men and women who served in the Ulster Defence Regiment.

The UDR Memorial Trust felt it appropriate that a suitable memorial be erected in memory of all those men, and women, who served in the Regiment in both a part-time and a full-time capacity.

The Memorial is intended to be a lasting tribute to their courage and dedication to duty, as well as a recognition of the sacrifice and stress which their service brought to their families.

Mr Sherlock, a former lecturer in Art and a successful businessman, is also an internationally recognised sculptor. He was educated at St Columb’s College, and graduated from Belfast and Liverpool Colleges of Art.

He has served as Council Member and Honorary Secretary of the Royal Ulster Academy, and was awarded the OBE in 2009 for his services to the arts.

The sculpture is designed in the classic tradition of public military memorials but features a vehicle check-point - one of the most mundane and routine duties of UDR soldiers during the troubles. These check-points became almost a part of the daily landscape during the Troubles.

Mr Sherlock took this once everyday scene, and presented it as an achieved artistic icon which happily is now largely a part of our history. Bronze crests of all ten UDR Battalions are also included on the plinth of Mourne granite.

The sculptures of the UDR soldier and Greenfinch are one and a half times life-size, about 9ft high. They are positioned on a 10ft high plinth, so that, when viewed from the ground, they appear smaller - approximately life-size.

The overall sculpture and plinth are in carefully considered proportion to the general dimensions of the site and the context of Market Square.

The entire project has made no demand whatever on the public purse.

The complete cost and maintenance of the memorial will be sourced from UDR charity funds, supplemented by public appeal.

The Ulster Defence Regiment was formed on 1st April 1970, and over the years, more than 50,000 men and women from all walks of life served in its ranks. In all, 260 serving and former members were killed, and over 400 wounded, many of them off-duty, at their homes or workplaces.