This mural featuring the rights of children was painted in Derry’s Brandywell area in 2014; it puts images alongside parts of Caroline Castle’s rendering of the UN’s Rights of the Child. The one above reads “Understand that all children are precious. Pick us up if we fall down and if we are lost lend us your hand. Give us things we need to make us happy and strong and always do your best for us whenever we are in your care. Right no. 3”.
Patsy O’Hara mural and (out of shot to the left but shown in close-up below) memorial stone: This memorial is dedicated to the memory of Volunteer Patsy O’Hara, Irish National Liberation Army and H-Block martyr, who gave his life on 21st May 1981. Also dedicated to his nine brave comrades. “If you strike at, imprison, or kill us, out of our prisons or graves we will still evoke a spirit that will thwart you, and perhaps, raise a force that will destroy you! We defy you! Do your worst!” – James Connolly
Here are three boards in Derry focused on HMP Maghaberry. The high security prison holds 1,000 prisoners and segregates loyalists and republicans, a situation described as “a festering sore” in a recent inspection. (Tele) Republicans say that the current crisis overlooks existing issues such as controlled movement and strip searches. (Irish News)
Historian Laurel Ulrich‘s 1976 phrase is one of a variety featured in this Derry mural celebrating the role of women both locally and world-wide. It includes images of local women banging bin lids, marching past the ‘Free Derry’ graffiti on 33 Lecky Road, and rioting; images of women striking and protesting; support for Palestine and gay rights; celebrations of femininity; and Wonder Woman. As the final image, below, shows, the tapestry of images and posters is being sewn by a woman at a sewing-machine in one of Derry’s large shirt- and collar-making factories. (For some history see these Derry Journal articles: one | two.) As the panel on the left-hand side notes, “Derry women made more than shirts; they made communities”.
On the left of the main panel, women march out of one of the city’s gates. The information sheet (which has fallen off) reads as follows: “On International Women’s Day, March 8th [1991, not 1981 as the hand-written addition suggests], the first ever women’s mural in Derry was unveiled on the back of Free Derry Wall. It was designed and painted by Patricia Hegarty and Joe Coyle, and helpers, both men and women. The mural takes its inspiration from a march in November 1968, after Minister for Home Affairs Bill Craig banned all civil rights marches in the walled city. Women factory workers walked out and spent the afternoon marching in and out of every gate in the city, deliberately “breaking the ban”. Men marched in from DuPont to join them, and a rally was held in the Diamond. In the mural you can find the faces of some of those marching on that historic day, as well as other women who played their part in the ongoing struggle for justice. Civil rights workers Bridget Bond and Women’s Aid refuge founder Cathy Harkin march alongside republicans such as Ethel Lynch, Bridget Sheils, Peggy Derry, prisoners’ rights activists Susie Coyle, and many others. You may find images of your granny, sister or aunt. The mural is dedicated to all those women whose energy and determination have changed their lives and the world about them.”
The board on FDC can be seen in Woods’s Seeing Is Believing?, plate 19.
The eastern side of what was the island of Derry is called the Water side and the western side, although originally under water, became the Bog side in about 1600. The two murals shown here are on either side of the shops adjacent to the Bogside Inn. There is an excellent history of the area from 1162 to the construction of Rossville flats in 1966 at the Museum Of Free Derry.
“Many suffer so that someday future generations may live in justice and peace.”
Portraits of Nelson Mandela and Bobby Sands are presented side by side, both smiling, in front of the flags of (post-apartheid) South Africa and the Republic of Ireland.
“The way we were” written on the bog side of the walls of Derry provide a name for this mural behind Derry’s Bogside Inn. The old Rossville flats are in the top left hand corner. (Both Rossville flats and graffiti on the walls – “God made the Catholics, the armalite made us equal” – can be seen in this 1982 image (M00039) from Peter Moloney’s collection.)
International Women’s Day, which dates as far back as 1909, is today, March 8th, 2016. Above is the 2014 mural celebrating the day in the complex of shops at London-/Derry’s Bogside Inn.
“No pasarán” is Spanish for “they shall not pass”, a phrase used by the Communists and Republicans as they tried (unsuccessfully) to defend the city of Madrid during the Spanish civil war. The board in front commemorates “those from this area who left Ireland to fight against Fascism during the Spanish Civil War 1936-1938”.
“The Runner” in the background mural (part of The People’s Gallery) is also having trouble holding his ground in the (repainted) famous Bogside Artists’ (web) work intended “to be a cautionary reminder to the young of the dangers inherent in civil conflict”. (CAIN)
Seosamh Mac Coille Collection 