Description
Object description
A group of three murals on the Rathcoole Estate.
From left to right:
i) Mural bearing the letters "KAI - UVF" and the insignia of the Red Hand of Ulster with the Northern Irish flag and Scottish St Andrew's Cross surrounding it.
The KAI acronym/word has an ambiguous meaning. It refers firstly to the Loyalist tartan gang, the Rathcoole Kai. Bo Kerr, one of its original members, started a band in 1970 called ' Kai' in homage to Kai Johansen, a Danish footballer who played for Glasgow Rangers in the late 1960s. When Kerr and other young men from Rathcoole started the Rathcoole tartan gang he claimed he carried over the name from his band and the gang became known as the Rathcoole Kai. The other supposed, and widely held meaning is that it is an acronym that stands for 'Kill all Irish'. Finding common ground on this is problematic and depends largely on who is being spoken to.
The Tartan Gangs were influenced by the Young Teams, violent Glasgow street gangs, and many of the Tartan Gang members were Rangers supporters who were exposed to the culture while visiting Glasgow to watch Rangers play. The term 'tartan' stems from the gangs wearing identifying tartan scarves, the first of these gangs, dating from about 1968, was the Shankill Young Tartan. The story connected with their name was that one of their founding members stole a box of tartan scarves from a shop in Glasgow and the gang started wearing them as identifiers of who they were and changed their name from Shankill Young Team (in homage to Glasgow gangs) to Shankill Young Tartan, with similar Belfast gangs then following their lead.
Many gang members would eventually join the UVF and Red Hand Commando groups often via their youth organisations the Young Citizen Volunteers (UVF) and RHC Youth (Red Hand Commando).
ii) The Union Jack and the slogan "No surrender";
iii) a mocking image showing Pope John Paul II supporting the Protestant cause by waving a scarf decorated with the word 'Ulster' and the date '1690', the date of the Battle of the Boyne, where William of Orange defeated the Jacobite forces loyal to James II.