Lambeg Drum painting marks Somme sacrifice

And that was amply demonstrated by one local Orange Lodge, Ballymena Golden Star, at this year’s Twelfth demonstration in the town.

They were marching behind their traditional drumming party, one of whom beat out the ‘time’ on a drum which had just been repainted with the uniformed portrait of an ancestor of one of their members who lost his life on July 1, 1916 while serving with the famous Ulster Division.

Thomas McCallum enlisted in Ballymena and served in the 13th Btn. of the Royal Irish Rifles which attacked from Thiepval Wood on that hot July morning. As a lance-corporal, he would have been deemed a ‘good soldier’ in the ranks of the ‘new army’ created by Lord Kitchener at the outbreak of war.

Thomas had been born in Carnmoney but came to live in Ballymena some years before the war and lived with his mother at 16, Parkhead just above the entrance to the People’s Park on the Ballymoney Road. During the attack at Thiepval, the 13th Royal Irish Rifles suffered one of the highest casualty rates on a day in which almost 20,000 british soldiers were killed outright.

In fact they had the dubious ‘honour’ of suffering the highest number of fatalities amongst the Ulster Division battalions committed to action that day. As they attacked, they were subjected to ferocious machine gun fire from the fortress village of St. Pierre Divion and from the high ground both at Thiepval itself and across the River Ancre at Beaumont Hamel. From a ‘bayonet strength’ of around 700 men they lost no less than 242 killed outright with most of the others suffering wounds.

Like so many other local soldiers, Lce. Corp. McCallum’s body was never recovered from the battlefield and his parents, desperate for information about his fate, appealed through the columns of the Ballymena Observer (our ancestor paper) for anyone who could shed light on what happened to him.

Ninety-five years later, a superbly crafted portrait of the fallen soldier adorned one of their drums and the lodge were proud to march behind ‘The Pride of Parkhead’ on ‘the Twelfth day’.

His name is inscribed on the Thiepval Memorial