NIVA Service of Remembrance Saturday 14th September 2024

This years’ service will be held at 11.30am on Saturday 14th September 2024 at the National Memorial Arboretum, Alrewas, Staffordshire.

The service will commemorate and remember all those who lost their lives in service of the Crown as a result of the conflict in N. Ireland.

The chapel service will be followed by a parade down to the Ulster Ash Grove for the laying of wreathes.

Following the laying of the wreathes, there will be a 15-minute pause before...

Northern Ireland Veterans' Association

Service of Remembrance
National Memorial Arboretum
Saturday 9th September 2023






This years’ service will be held at 11.30am on Saturday 9th September 2023 at the National Memorial Arboretum, Alrewas, Staffordshire.

The service will commemorate and remember all those who lost their lives in service of the Crown as a result of the conflict in N. Ireland.

The chapel...

This year's service will be held at the NMA on Saturday 10th September. At present, we won't be aware of restrictions, if any, that the NMA will impose on attendees (pre booking cars, names etc) but as this information is made available to us, we will publish it.

NIVA Service Of Remembrance

The 2021 service will be held at 11.30am on Saturday 11th September 2021 at the National Memorial Arboretum, Alrewas, Staffordshire.The service will commemorate and remember all those who lost their lives in service of the Crown as a result of the conflict in N. Ireland.The chapel service will be followed by a parade down to the Ulster Ash Grove for the laying of wreathes. ...

Ten members and wives assembled today at the Ulster Ash Grove to represent all our members for the Act of Remembrance. ...

It is our sad duty to inform you that Ken passed away on Thursday 19th March 2020 after a brief struggle with cancer.
A full obituary will be published in the forthcoming Newsletter.

The NIVA Annual Service of Remembrance was booked with the NMA to take place on Saturday 12th September 2020. Since that booking was made, we have been advised that the NMA is closed for the foreseeable future. Alternative arrangements may have to be made. Keep logging in to follow and

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Two self-proclaimed British Government spies have escaped from a top-security prison in Ireland where they were serving sentences for armed robbery.

It is another embarrassment for the authorities at Mountjoy Prison in Dublin coming just five months after a helicopter plucked three leading IRA members from Mountjoy's exercise yard.
The latest escapees, brothers Kenneth and Keith Littlejohn, were jailed last year for a £67,000 robbery at a Dublin bank - the biggest to date in Irish history.
During their trial the Littlejohns claimed they were working for the British Government against the IRA. ...

1989: IRA bombs Tern Hill barracks

Police are hunting two IRA bombers who attacked an army barracks at Tern Hill in Shropshire.
Fifty members of the 2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment escaped injury when sentry Lance Corporal Alan Norris spotted two men acting suspiciously in the early hours of this morning.

He raised the alarm and the barracks was evacuated shortly before two bombs went off.The bombers escaped in a stolen car, which was found earlier this evening about 10 miles from the barracks.

Lance Corporal Norris was on patrol duty at about 0300 hours this morning when he spotted the terrorists.
...

NIVA Annual Service of Remembrance 2019
This will be held on Saturday 14th September. All are welcome.
Most of you will be aware that this year marks the 50th anniversary of the deployment of Operation Banner.
We embrace this commemoration within our Annual Service of Remembrance and to mark that, we will be laying some 2000 Poppy crosses each bearing the names and unit of each of the Fallen; they will be laid in Regimental lines close to the Ulster Memorial. The sacrifice of those members of the civilian services, Police, Prison Officers, CSU and others, will marked by Poppy crosses laid in their respective unit lines.

...

By Gareth Cross - Belfast Telegraph
November 5 2018


A 66-year-old man was arrested in Donegal on Monday on suspicion of the murder of two Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) soldiers in 1972.
The Press Association have confirmed that the man arrested was former IRA man John Downey.
He was also arrested on suspicion of aiding and abetting an explosion.

Lance Corporal Alfred Johnston, a father of 4, and Private James Eames, a father of 3, died when a device exploded in a car they were checking on the Irvinestown Road, Cherrymount, Enniskillen on August 25, 1972.
Downey was arrested under a European Arrest Warrant as part of a joint operation with the Police Service of Northern Ireland. ...

Please feel free to copy this and spread it far and wide:


NIVA Op Banner 50^th Anniversary Parade


August 2019 will be the 50^th anniversary of British military forces

As you will no doubt be aware, August 2019 will be the 50th anniversary of the deployment of the armed forces in Northern Ireland on what was known as Operation Banner. To commemorate this we would like to extend an invitation to all military, police and other crown forces' veterans to attend a service/march to be held at Wallace Park, Lisburn on Saturday, 17th August 2019. This invitation is also extended to veterans' families, in particular those who lost serving members during the conflict. ...

Warning Order

We are pleased to advise that the 2018 service will be on Saturday, 8th September 2018 at the NMA commencing at 11am.

All welcome.

The Association is pleased to announce and welcome our new patron, General Sir Robert Pascoe KCB MBE and Mentioned in Despatches (twice) who has kindly agreed to act as the Association’s figurehead.

General Bob as he prefers to be known as these days was commissioned into the Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry in 1952 and served in the Suez Canal Zone, Osnabruck and Cyprus.

He has served with the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the Royal Green Jackets and was first mentioned in despatches serving in Borneo in 1966.

The award of the MBE followed in 1968 as a Company Commander 1RGJ in Cyprus. General Rob went onto be Commanding Officer of 1RGJ in BAOR from where he served two tours of Northern Ireland being once again mentioned in despatches in 1974.
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_{By Vincent Kearney BBC News NI Home Affairs Correspondent}

Tim Francis still clearly recalls the moment a car bomb blew him off his feet and across a street in Londonderry. He walked away unscathed, but that day in 1974 marked the end of his dream of a career in the British army.

"My clear recollection of that time is actually flying through the air and thinking to myself, 'I'm number four', because we'd lost three guys previously," he said. "I think that was the final straw on my Army career.

Tim Francis left his home in Wales to join the Army when he was just 16 as an apprentice surveyor. Three years later, he was sent to Northern Ireland as a member of the Royal Artillery Regiment. During his first tour, he was based in Newtownhamilton in south Armagh. "Initially when we went there we went to shops, we could buy cigarettes, we could buy whatever we needed from local shops," he said. "But gradually that became more of a problem and we were no longer welcome.

"During his four months there, the teenage soldier was in an armoured truck, a Humber Pig, that hit a landmine. "There was a big flash, bang, we were lifted off the ground," he recalled. "We seemed to be in the air for quite a while, but it couldn't have been very long, and then hit the ground with a big bang. Incredibly, none of the soldiers inside were injured.

...