It Can’t Be Made More Equal

Posters on a drainpipe on the Falls Road next to Gerry Carroll’s constituency office: “Keep Stormont closed. Smash Stormont – It can’t be made more equal, less corrupt or used to promote socialism. Close it now! Sign the petition … Published by Socialist Democracy.”

With “Saol trí Ghaeilge [atá uainn]” below [We want life using Irish].

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Copyright © 2018 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Just People

Here is a selection of posters from throughout the past year (2017) from Belfast and London-/Derry. Above is an Anarchists In Ireland poster welcoming refugees, while the second image is of a passenger and parcel service to Romania from Dublin. The others are for republican marches and causes.

Previous collections of (mostly torn) posters: We Had Our Distresses | Layer Upon Layer

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Hoops, Stripes, Rings

Lisburn boxer James “The Assassin” Tennyson, current Irish super-featherweight champion, (BoxRec | tw) provides the centre-piece between soccer and gaelic games in this Glenbawn mural: on the left, the Celtic Boys Club (web), established 1983) and Gaelic games club Seán Uí Mhistéil (web | Fb) originally formed in the New Lodge in 1899.

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Sure It’s Good To Talk

Superheroes Hulk, Captain America, Superman, Spiderman, and Wonder Woman fight isolation and depression by passing out the phone number for the Suicide Awareness And Support Group (90239967) and encouraging people to check on each other in Glenbawn.

The wide shot (third) includes the sporting mural seen previously in Hoops, Stripes & Rings. These murals replace a 2005 piece around casts of local children’s hands – the casts have been retained.

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Wren Day

Though the tradition might pre-date Christianity, on the day after Christmas – known also as Boxing day and St Stephen’s day – the wren (the king of winter and symbol of the past year) is hunted by strawboys or mummers who disguise themselves with straw headgear and make a parade and go around the houses asking for money to bury the wren.

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Comóradh 100 Blıaın

Thomas Ashe was born on January 12th, 1885, in County Kerry, into a bi-lingual household. He became an Irish teacher in Lusk and joined the Gaelic League and the Irish Volunteers, commanding the Fingal battalion during the Easter Rising. His death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, which in fact lasted only a year. He was released but soon charged and convicted with sedition, and died on hunger strike on September 25th, 1917, after an “inhuman and dangerous” attempt at force-feeding by the authorities (WP). See also Tomás Ághas.

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Kieran Nugent

The first blanket man, Kieran Nugent (obituary at An Phoblacht), is back in the first spot of the Divis Street wall, where he has resided, with brief interruptions, since 2005. Most recently, a board with the same image as this one was replaced by part of the 1916 centenary mural (see Young Ireland); before that, he was moved further down the wall to the hunger striker mural (along with Mairéad Farrell) to make way for a pro-Catalan mural.

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Stronger Together

Here are eight images of the new Ardoyne mural featuring (from left to right in the image below) Ardoyne Youth Club, Ard Eoın Kickhams, and the John Paul II Youth Club as alternatives to bullying, racism, homophobia, addiction and other social ills. In addition to Irish dancing, soccer, and Gaelic games, there are also images of young people practicing martial arts, DJing, and boxing.

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