A 1916 centenary mural on Divis Street with the red star of socialism and the Easter lily of Irish nationalism: “Republican Socialist movement — IRSP INLA — remembers and salutes all those who gave their lives and liberty in the struggle for national liberation and socialism in Ireland.”
A history of nationalism/republicanism from left to right: a pair of Easter lilies, four generations of rifles, and then a switch to a ballot paper with a check in favour of “unity” and a road named “Unity Way”: “From bullet to ballot: the evolution of our revolution. 1916 – 2016”
This mural is on the north side of Hugo Street – the south side remains exclusively éırígí.
While taking part in the Easter Rising centenary parade, members of the James Connolly 1st Republican Flute Band from Glasgow (tw) pause on the Falls Road during a squall. Embroidered on the rear of their shirts are the words “We serve neither king nor kaiser, but Ireland”, the slogan which hung outside the ITGWU’s Liberty Hall during the first world war. Image courtesy of Bronagh Bowerman.
These images all come from Stanley’s Walk, along with eastern side of Celtic Park, which is home to Derry GAA games and has a capacity of 18,000 spectators.
Immaculata amateur boxing club (Fb) (or simply “The Mac”) in the Lower Falls will celebrate its 70th birthday in May this year. This long mural, painted in 2015 and featuring boxing past and present, is in Servia Street, near the club’s Albert Street home.
Arrayed against the forces of the British Army (which are shown laying siege to the Dublin GPO during the Easter Rising in armoured cars and in sniping positions in the foreground of the mural, along the whole length of the wall) are various symbols of Irish nationalism:
Oliver Sheppard‘s 1911 statue of Cú Chulaınn dying (see the Visual History page); the pikemen of the 1798 Rebellion (featured in Éırí Amach 1798); the four provinces of Ireland; Érıu the mythological queen of Ireland/Éıre as designed by Richard J King/Rísteard Ó Cíonga; Easter lilies; the emblems of Na Fıanna Éıreann and Cumann Na mBan on either side of a quote from (The Mainspring) Sean MacDiarmada, “We bleed that the nation may live; I die that the nation may live. Damn your concessions, England: we want our country”; a phoenix rising from the flames of the burning Dublin GPO (inspired by Norman Teeling’s 1998 painting The GPO Burns In Dublin); the GPO flying an ‘Irish Republic’ flag and a Tricolour; portraits of signatories and other rebels — (left) Padraig H. Pearse, Thomas J Clarke, Eamonn Ceannt, Thomas MacDonagh, (right) Countess Markievicz, James Connolly, Sean MacDiarmada, Thomas Plunkett; the declaration of independence, placed over the advertising box of AA Accountants – see the in-progress shot below.
For more work-in-progess images, see Éırí Amach 1798. At the very bottom is a quote from the mother of Gerard ‘Mo Chara’ Kelly, Harriet Kelly: “We want the freedom of our country and your soldiers out.”
“Welcome to Ardoyne.” Updated images of a 2014 series of panels in Ardoyne Avenue, celebrating the neighbourhood and reproducing some well-known images from the area. The years have not been kind, with the top layer of brick coming off in many places, including the eyes of boxer Eamonn Magee (?).
The Twinbrook Road shops have been moved out to the edge of the street and the murals that were on the old shops are now gone or obscured, including the long wall of hunger-striker portraits had been updated annually since 2006. That mural has been condensed into a new, printed, image, placed on the side of the shops facing the Stewartstown Road. As before, it shows blanketmen Freddie Toal and Hugh Rooney, Sands, and three volunteers firing a volley of shots, with the portraits of the strikers who died in the 70s and 80s along the bottom.