From The Shipyard To The Somme will continue to run on until Saturday at the Connswater Community Centre off the Newtownards Road.

It was put together by the 36th (Ulster) Division Memorial Association in partnership with the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, and follows a group of Belfast men from the Home Rule crisis to the trenches of the Somme.

The two act play tells the story of a group of young men from the same streets in east Belfast, tracing their differing involvements with the fast moving and tumultuous events surrounding resistance to the Third Home Rule Bill and following them through the transformation of the UVF/YCV into the 36th (Ulster) Division and their deployment at the Somme in 1916.

Opening in a tent at “World’s End Camp” Ballykinler, on the May 6, 1915 as the 107th (Belfast) Brigade prepare to depart for the Divisional Review in Belfast before embarkation for France, to the long day and night of July 1-2 1916, as they push through the hell of mud and high explosives that lie between Thiepval Wood and the German fifth line.

Fintan Brady of Partisan Productions was the Artistic Director of the production.

Stephen Gough from the 36th (Ulster) Division Memorial Association said this was the organisation’s first step into the arts world and is a “major financial and cultural investment in east Belfast by the 36th (Ulster) Division Memorial Association at a time when the area has been making the headlines for all the wrong reasons”.

He said he felt Unionist history is largely ignored by the arts world.

It is hoped that the production will be able to be taken on tour across Northern Ireland, to the Republic of Ireland, as well as the mainland UK.

*From The Shipyard To The Somme will run at Connswater Community Centre on Severn Street until Saturday May 18, starting at 7.30pm with a matinee at 2.30pm. Admission is £5, with a reduction to £3 for pensioners while under 12’s are free.