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Newsletter, Edition 2
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It has been over 8 months since my last newsletter; sorry for the delay! I hope in that time many of you will have kept on visiting the website to check for new articles or to revisit existing ones. If you have managed to visit the site recently you may have noticed a few articles from further afield; ever intrepid, I had the fortune to visit the British colonial outposts of the Falkland Islands and Ascension Island, as well as spending 10 days touring the fortifications of the Orkney Islands. I have written articles on the coastal artillery defences of both the Falklands and Ascension and interpreted a rare First World War anti-aircraft site on Orkney, Burray Ness. Please have a read and your feedback is always welcome. They are also suitably image-heavy if you don't want to read the whole article.
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On the topic of images, I have broken the 6,500 upload mark on Flickr photographs! I have far more photographs than I could ever research and write articles on, so I am confident you will discover new sites of interest here. You can browse my albums of military sites without an account at flickr.com
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A year in numbers
2021 also saw me reach over 14,000 unique visitors to the site, I feel this is a huge achievement for something as niche as the articles I produce. Two articles, in particular, continued to pull in visitors and received almost 1,500 views each; Military Stones where I characterise military boundary stones and Second World War Aircraft Direction Finding uncovering the early attempts to track British fighters over the skies of Great Britain. It is great to see the majority of traffic from search engines, but Facebook posts also send traffic to the site, with Instagram and Twitter far behind. Most intriguing are the 60 referrals from Wikipedia; I am yet to discover the Wikipedia article that has referenced the site. Finally, the Guardian website has an article linking the website; in particular to the article on Magilligan Point. While it has only generated 4 hits, it feels positive to get exposure from a National news outlet!
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Randalstown Forest
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During the winter holiday period, I took the opportunity to engage with some twentieth-century Northern Irish military history. A Twitter post from a local archaeologist and military historian of one of the pillboxes in Randalstown Forest prompted me to visit a site that had been on my radar for a long time. With the vegetation low over winter, it seemed as good a time as any.
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Strangely only one pillbox is recorded on the Defence Heritage Record (DHR: 161) and the Defence of Britain overlay (EDOBID: e24511). There are three pillboxes in total forming a defensive line I think may have protected a bridge crossing over the River Maine to their rear. You can read more about the Randalstown pillboxes here.
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While trudging through the wet forest I discovered something I had never thought to find; remains of the First World War musketry or rifle range. Three ranges between 200 yards and 600 yards were constructed in what is now Randalstown Forest to support the training of troops encamped at Shanes Park Camp to the north. There may not be much to see other than a few earth banks, but for what was once a temporary training facility in a now heavily developed commercial forest; the sight of a 90m long bank sends tingles up any budding military historians spine. You can read more about the Randalstown firing range here.
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Website outage
During November 2021 there were around 3 weeks when the website was offline or performing poorly. This was an issue with the memory allocated to it by the hosts. During this time I was unable to receive emails linked to the domain or any messages sent through the website. I am assured this has now been resolved, however, if you contacted me and haven't yet received a response, please get back in touch as your message may have been lost in the system.
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Thank you for sticking around, and I hope you will continue to enjoy my content. You can contact me at any stage if you would like more information on anything I have published, and I will be more than happy to reply.
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Author of Frontline Ulster
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If you have spotted anything that you think should be corrected, please let me know by sending me an email or filling out the contact form on the website.
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Read the latest articles:
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One of many Forest Service forests across Northern Ireland, Randalstown Forest was gifted by the Shanes Castle Estate in 1934. It is open to the public and can be openly visited and explored. What many of the visitors to the forest may not appreciate, is that hiding among the relatively young forest is a number of interesting military relics spanning …
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The pillbox is synonymous with the Second World War. Thousands were constructed across the United Kingdom (and IrelandA programme of defence building was undertaken by the Irish along the River Boyne and around a number of south coast ports) to defend high-value areas or as part of a National defensive line. Many of them still remain and conjure up the …
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A lesser-known British Colonial outpost, Ascension Island could be the secret lair of a Bond villain. It is a dormant volcano, approximately 88 square kilometres in size, 1,000 miles from the coast of Africa; and more often than not these days is surrounded by sharks. There is no indigenous population; inhabitants come on strict work visas, often with spouses and …
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A rare military site dating back to the height of the First World War remains virtually untouched on an exposed headland at Burray Ness, on the Isle of Burray, south of Orkney Mainland. Constructed at some stage between 1914 - 1918 (most likely in around 1915 when the scale of defensive construction was increased in preparation for Scapa Flow sheltering …
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