The Belfast Pride festival runs from July 29th to August 7th this year, with a parade on the 6th. 8 weeks ago today (on June 12th) 49 people were shot to death in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The images below are from Ardoyne Avenue and Northumberland Street.
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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Here are five images of the St. James Youth mural on Rodney Parade across from the farm: “Music is our drug – R speaker is R dealer” and “Mates do hugs, not drugs”.
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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03835 X03836 X03554 X03555 X03834 [X02937] [X02938] [X02939] [X02940] [X02941] [X02942] dan devine inverness FC ruari dalton all-ireland boxing stephen webb boxer joseph mccall music promoter irish champion dee walsh professional boxer stephen hall snooker bam neeson GAA
Voters (finally!) go to the polls today in the much-discussed “Brexit” referendum. Opinion on the nationalist side is split – the image above advises “leave” “for independence, for democracy, for freedom, for Europe, for peace” while in the third image the poster is pro-remain with the suggestion that “We’re better off in.” In between, a poster in a loyalist area alleges that “We send the EU £50 million every day — let’s spend that on our NHS instead.”
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Copyright © 2016 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X03542 [X03515] X03541 X03543 [also X03669] whiterock rd twaddell ave clondara st james connolly nora connolly obrien british government has no right in ireland éırígí
Sınn Féın candidate Pat Sheehan attempted to shore up support among republicans by using the image shown above and below for his campaign propaganda in the recent Assembly elections, hearkening back to the 1981 hunger strike, in which a 23-year-old Sheehan went 55 days without food, until the strike was called off. The tactic was successful and Sheehan was re-elected from his Belfast West constituency.
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IRPWA (Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association) stencil. Below is a wide shot showing all three of recent pieces in Beechmount (prior to the destruction of the one on the right): No Steps Backward | Political Dissent Is Not A Crime! | The Butcher’s Apron.
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Here is another mural, this time in west Belfast, in the campaign demanding a response to a shortage in low-income housing. For more, see previously, Equality Can’t Wait.
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Anti-touting posters on the Whiterock and Falls roads: “People Should Not Inform” to the Police Service of Northern Ireland and Mi5. The Falls example also has a “End the internment of Tony Taylor” sticker from “Irish Republican Tims [Fb?]”.
Previously: A PSNI from the loyalist side.
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Martin McGuinness waits, with hand outstretched, to greet a smiling Queen Elizabeth who strides towards him carrying a bloodied axe and wearing a Union flag apron spattered with the blood of people from Ireland, Palestine, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Mural in Beechmount reproducing a 2012 Latuff cartoon.
Update: 2016-06-21 The figures have been blotted out, by Sınn Féın, alleges the IRPWA.
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“We must take no steps backward, our steps must be onward. If we don’t, the martyrs that died for you, for me, for this country … will haunt us forever” — the words of Máıre Drumm from an anti-internment rally in Dunville Park on 10th August, 1975 (RN) are featured against a backdrop of female volunteers in Cumann Na mBan wearing berets and holding rifles.
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The history-of-republicanism mural now taking up the majority of the International Wall is not without controversy among republicans. One point of contention is the inclusion of Edward Carson’s portrait and the related scene of the Larne gun-running. Carson was leader of the Irish Unionist Alliance, campaigner against Home Rule, and founder of the Ulster Volunteers. 25,000 guns and more than 3 million rounds of ammunition were smuggled ashore at Larne, Donaghadee, and Bangor (see the second image for a sketch and the bottom two images for the completed scene). The formation of the UVF drew a counter-reaction in the formation of the Irish Volunteers, and membership was spurred on by the Larne gun-running. (See the third image.)
Carson’s image was originally paint-bombed in March (BMG | BelTel) and then again in April when “loose talk” posters were also added (Irish News). (For Loose Talk posters over the Otegi mural, see Loose-Talk Costs Lives.) For the launch on August 3rd, the posters were removed but the paint-bombing was not fixed. The image above is from June, 2016.
Grid for the gun-running scene; image from March 2016. It is based on a drawing from the Illustrated London News, which can be seen in this RTÉ article on the gunrunning. About 600 cars were used in the operation, perhaps the first large-scale use of motorised vehicles.
A newsboy carries a paper announcing the burgeoning Irish Volunteers. The headline portrayed was later changed, as can be seen in one of the images below.
The first part of wall at the end of March, before the addition of the ‘loose talk’ posters over Carson’s face.
The panel as it appears in August; the removal of the posters tore away some of the paint around Carson’s face.
A late August repaint makes Carson’s forehead protrude and the fingers of his hand are curled up. A Fáılte Feırste Thıar/Welcome To West Belfast panel has been added. (Presumably this welcome does not extend to the weapons being smuggled in as part of the gun-running.)
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X03491 X03337 X03493 X03355 X03733 X03819 divis st we will not have home rule in ireland promoting west belfast tourism visitwestbelfast.com
