Operation Banner, the 38-year long British Army occupation of Northern Ireland, ends at Midnight tonight, so the bomb-proof strongholds from which the soldiers set forth to patrol and 'pacify' the population, are being torn down.
My friend and colleague Jonathan Olley documented these modern-day imperial forts in his evocative book 'Castles of Ulster', and this Channel 4 News* report featuring his images, tells the story of the armoured structures constructed for the British Army's longest ever campaign.
Until perhaps, their next outing...and the new fortresses for that, are already being built.
One notorious Ulster castle was the 'Borucki Sangar' in Crossmaglen, South Armagh. A 'sangar' was a temporary defence used by the British Indian Army operating in the North West Frontier and Afghanistan at the height of the British Empire.
It's funny how the name of one fort from a recent decades-long 'temporary' conflict, prefigures the location of new fortresses built for the British Army's next temporary expedition.
(* Click on the 'Watch The Report' icon on the Channel 4 News page)
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