UDR sacrifice deserves better

Castle Gardens and the other much larger war memorial have just been very sensitively restored. Placing the UDR memorial behind a council building and on a busy road junction by a bus lay bye will obscure it from sight of most of the major Lisburn streets.

I only became aware of the memorial recently and was dismayed when I saw the actual photos of the bronze statue. The soldier is standing in an aggressive pose. The Greenfinch is behind in what appears to be a clearly subordinate role. The monument manages to appear both aggressive and sexist.

However, what is probably worse is the stance of the soldier which, if I were to put a pistol in his hand, would parody the nearby statue of the Dublin born East India Company officer John Nicholson.

Nicholson was never a member of the British army and gained a disgraceful reputation in India. After independence the Indian Government removed all statues of Nicholson. All the politicians in Lisburn City Council who have set out to make this monument into a political and sectarian issue should be ashamed of themselves - Unionist, Republican and Nationalist alike. The UDR sacrifice deserves better.

P. Green