Back in July (2015) “Taigs will be crucified” graffiti appeared on an box next to the Broadway roundabout but was removed after a few days. “Taigs will be dealt with” then appeared — see the image below.
The graffiti above is not far away on the Donegall Road, when it appeared in July it was joined by a wooden crucifix (for which see this BelTel article); the crucifix has gone but the graffiti was still in place in November. “VTOT” stands for “Village Team On Tour” – referring to the loyalist “Village” area of south Belfast.
The image above shows three members of the Royal Irish Constabulary outside Belfast’s Celtic Park in 1912. The event is perhaps a visit by Lord Pirrie, Winston Churchill, and John Redmond to speak in favour of the Home Rule bill at a meeting of the Ulster Liberal Association on February 8th. (You can see at ticket for the event at Decade Of Centenaries.) The meeting was originally to be held in the Ulster Hall, but this was blockaded by Unionist protesters (Irish History). According to one site, Churchill was “nearly lynched” by angry Protestants outside the grounds.
For Armistice Day commemorations 2015 an old mural (below) depicting east Belfast mill workers in cloth caps going to work beneath the H&W cranes was replaced with an image of a single soldier standing over a WWI burial cross with head bowed. In front are the same kind of small wooded crosses and poppies featured in Row On Row from Pitt Park. By Glenn Black and Ken Maze of Blaze FX (web).
Here are three shots of the new Blaze Fx (web | Fb) “Belfast Giants” mural in east Belfast’s Lord Street. The Giants have been Belfast’s ice-hockey team for the last fifteen years, beginning in 2000. The detail above shows mascot Finn MacCool and the image of the full mural, below, includes the team motto, the (a)politically-motivated “In the land of the giants, everyone is equal.” The mural takes the place of a UDA mural (featured previously, Feriens Tego; see also the second info board, below, on “the re-imaging of Lord Street 2012-2015”) and is one of three large murals and various small murals to be replaced or painted out. (This News Letter article puts the total at nine.)
Saturday (November 28th) saw the official launch of the repainted Lord Street. All of the murals and side-walls (such as in the final image, below) have been painted over or painted out as part of a project sponsored by the Housing Executive and CharterNI. Also included in the work was a repainting of the Ledley Hall/Queen’s Jubilee mural at the junction with Kingswood Street. The new mural shows the hall past and present and features local figures Bob Yarr (OBE), Eddie Witherspoon, John Cross (BEM), John Currans, Sam Rainey, and Reggie Morrow.
For information about the hall itself, see the entry on Ledley Hall. See also Workers & Warriors for the new Somme mural across the street.
Update 2016-04: (part of) the info board. NIHE article on the re-imaging of nine murals in Lord St.
Three F-bombs today in a concentrated package. Above we have the PSNI and the IRA combined into one (and next to a swastika, not shown) in Maladon Street, south Belfast. Below, we have “Fuck the TV man, part 3” in Roulston Street in Londonderry’s Waterside. And finally, there is is “Fuck DAAD fags” on the New Lodge Road in north Belfast. “DAAD” stands for “direct action against drugs”, a group which counted Kevin McGuigan and Jock Davison as members (both of whom were killed in a feud this summer) and now goes by “AAD”. (For AAD and the murders of Davison and McGuigan see Irish News | Belfast Telegraph | Guardian.)
This Lesley Cherry mural in the Village area of Donegall Road shows a female figure sitting on a drum and holding one of the Harland & Wolff cranes in her hand.
Here is the second of two boards outside the Ulster Rangers Supporters Club (see also Doing Her Duty). The painting features a tram going under an Orange arch between the public baths on one side an Spin-A-Disc records on the other, surrounded by notable figures from the Shankill area.
Many thanks to Johnny Dougan of Shankill Area Social History (Fb) for the information below! Please e-mail or add a comment with additions or corrections.
Front, from left to right: Manchester United and Northern Ireland Soccer player Norman Whiteside (WP) and behind him boxer Davy Larmour and community worker Saidie Patterson (see WRDA), boxer Sammy (Cisco) Cosgrove, Senator Charlie McCullough (WP), Tommy Henderson, boxer Jimmy Warnock (original photograph here), Hugh Smyth (see previously Third Class Citizens), artist William Conor (see previously Conor’s Corner, Jack Henning (running), musician Belter Bell, writer Albert Haslett (Northern Visions interview).
Atop the tram: on the left is Jackie Redpath of the Save the Shankill Campaign (note other members of the group with placard on right; Northern Visions has a documentary about the Save The Shankill campaign) and Jack Higgins holding his book The Eagle Has Landed (WP). Up there too is Miss Sands, the music teacher in the Girls Model School, and historian Bobby Foster (Northern Visions interview). On the stairs are May Blood MBE and above her D.I. Nixon.
Here is a board from outside the Ulster Rangers Supporters Club (Fb) on the Shankill Road. It highlights the roles played by women during WWI as nurses and welders and in the Land Army. “She hasn’t a sword and she hasn’t a gun. But she’s doing her duty now fighting’s begun.”
The forces are shown gathered outside the West Belfast Orange Hall, on the Shankill at Brookmount Street.
Seosamh Mac Coille Collection 