This year – 2021 – is the centenary of the creation of Northern Ireland and the year in which Scottish football club Glasgow Rangers won their 55th league title. Support for the club is widespread among the PUL community in Northern Ireland; local soccer and the international team is overseen by the IFA.
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“Almond Drive [Twinbrook] supports front line workers.” “Victory to the NHS” in the fight against coronavirus and Covid-19, rather than “Victory to the Provos“.
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In 2019, images of Bobby Sands before his (second and final) arrest and imprisonment were rediscovered in the collection of French photographer Gérard Harlay. Sands was serving as a flag-bearer in an August 1976 march from the Busy Bee to Dunville Park to protest the withdrawal of political status. (For some of Harlay’s images, see Bobby Sands Trust.) This new mural in his home area of Twinbrook copies one of the images (though presents him as carrying a Tricolour rather than a harp) along with protesters protesting for “Public transport for Twinbrook now” and “Social housing for Twinbrook now”.
See also: Comóradh 40 Staılc Ocraıs
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“In memory of all taxi drivers – public and private – who were murdered by loyalists/British crown forces during the conflict serving their community through transport.” This is the side wall to a larger mural to black taxi drivers which has been in place since 2001, was repainted in 2011, and is again looking in rough shape.
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2021 is the 110th anniversary of International Women’s Day (web). In 1911 it was observed on March 19th, but since 1914 it has been held annually on March 8th. Free Derry Corner (Visual History) was changed to mark the occasion. In the background Bernadette Devlin is seen “inciting a riot” during the Battle Of The Bogside – as the charges against her read; she served six months.
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Copyright © 2021 Andy McDonagh/Eclipso Pictures (ig | Fb)
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On Sunday March 22nd, 1981, forty years ago this week, Raymond McCreesh and Patsy O’Hara joined Bobby Sands and Francis Hughes on hunger strike in Long Kesh/HMP Maze. They would be joined by 19 more prisoners before the strike ended with ten of the 23 meeting their deaths. On March 31st, 1974, Michael Gaughan went on hunger strike in Parkhurst, along with four others, including Frank Stagg. Gaughan died in June as a result of forced feeding; Stagg would die on a later strike, in February 1976.
The board is on the site of the former Andersonstown RUC barracks.
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This is the latest iteration of the “Build Homes Now” mural in Northumberland Street, with an update to the central panel. Previously it was a space for visitors to sign their names in support but now it is a quote from (presumably) someone living in temporary accommodation: “When you’re in a hostel for so long, it starts to feel like a jail. It’s just so irritating and frustrating.”
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Babies’ bottles and “dummies” (pacifiers) hang from a tree in the middle of Musgrave Park, next to St Brigid’s GAC pitches, perhaps because Brigid is patron saint of babies, children, and midwives (as well as brewers and poultry farmers) (WP).
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After last week’s east Belfast graffiti against Patricia Devlin of the Sunday World (BBC | Pensive Quill) comes this north Belfast graffiti threatening “Alison Moris” [Allison Morris] of the Irish News, both using the crosshairs symbol to threaten the journalists (Irish News).
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“PSNI Out” is the latest message on Slıabh Dubh from Gael Force Art, mounted in response to what it sees as disparate treatment of nationalists on the one hand (intruding, ostensibly on Covid-related grounds, interfering with a flower-laying ceremony in commemoration of the attack on the Sean Graham bookies shop on the Ormeau Road (Feb 5th, 1992) and arresting one of the victims, Mark Sykes (RTÉ)) and unionists on the other (PSNI monitoring but not confronting a UVF show of strength in Pitt Park (iTV)).
Michelle O’Neill called the Ormeau incident “a watershed moment for public confidence in policing” (Irish News); one officer has been suspended. The writing on the mountain is seen here over the Captain America panel of the wall of superheroes, enhanced versions of their human alter egos: Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner, Clark Kent, etc.
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Seosamh Mac Coille Collection 