These two wide shots are from the junction of Northumberland and Beverly streets, where the new Kitchener board joins poppies for soldiers of the the 36th (Ulster) Division on the 100th anniversary of the Somme and the (repaired) John Henry Patterson – godfather of the Israeli army – board.
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Copyright © 2017 Extramural Activity
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“Clonduff” in English and “Kyefiel” in Ulster Scots, a transliteration and a translation of the Irish “Cluain Daimh”, the meadow of the ox, and thus the sculpture shown above at the entrance to the area. Below are two images of “Tullyard Way”, translated into Ulster Scots as “Heichbrae Airt” from the Irish “tulach ard” (high hillside). The street signs were initially mistaken for Irish and torn down by local residents (Scots Anorak | BBC-NI).
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Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Here are two images from UK GE 2017. Above, Sınn Féın placards in a variety of bright colours (plus one for unsuccessful North Belfast candidate John Finucane). Below, “Choose Christ” and you could find both security and change!
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Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Religious vandalism, putting Jesus above “club and country” and loyalist paramilitarism, in south Belfast.
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Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Jamie Burns collapsed at the Queen’s Student Union last November after taking an ecstasy tablet. His parents, William and Lesley Burns, are at the forefront of a new drug awareness campaign, #1PillWillKill, which was launched on April 11th (UTv | Tele). The campaign includes this new board at the top of Twaddell Avenue, former site of the protest camp, where it is joined by two further boards urging people to send tips about drug dealing to the police.
“This artwork is dedicated in memory of Jamie Burns, 27 June 1993 – 20th November 2016. “We do not measure his life in years but by the endless love and joy he brought to us.” Officially unveiled on June 1st 2017 by Frank Mitchell and Vinny Hurrell. Commissioned by Unite The Union in recognition of the Burns family.”
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Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Here is the main part of a new printed mural in the Woodvale area of west Belfast (to be officially launched on Saturday, June 3rd). It celebrates the creation of the Woodvale Defence Association as “Defenders of our community since 1969” which in 1971 merged with other associations to form the UDA, whose youth wing is the UYM (lower middle, “terrae filius” = “sons of the soil”) and which uses “UFF” (upper left, “feriens ego” = “attack to defend”) as a cover for military operation. The final emblem is of the LPA (Loyalist Prisoners’ Association, “quis separabit” = “none shall separate us”). The mural replaced by this one is in the bottom left, while the bottom right contains an image of Long Kesh in 1979. The main photograph is of a 1972 march on the Shankill.
For the side-wall, see Remembering Our Fallen.
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Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Here’s the left-hand side of the UDA mural in Disraeli Street being launched today (June 3rd, 2017). As can be seen most clearly in the final, sideways-on, image, both pieces are a combination of printed poster and attached boards. Lines from Laurence Binyon’s poem For The Fallen of WWI are used: “They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old/Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun/And in the morning we shall remember them.”
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Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Sir Edward Carson, 1854-1935, was born and raised in Dublin, and practiced law there for many years, but he is most famously associated with the Unionist campaign against Home Rule and the creation of “a Protestant province of Ulster” and eventually the six-county state of Northern Ireland.
This new piece is by Dee Craig in Ballyclare’s Grange Drive.
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Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Fifteen football teams from west and north Belfast are involved in a new Suicide Awareness and Mental Health Initiative (SAMHI) in order to combat a recent increase in suicides, including two players from Belfast Celtic (BBC).
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Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Here is another pair of combined UVF memorial stones – from both WWI and the modern conflict. Above, the fallen comrades of 2nd battalion South Belfast are remembered by their fellow officers and volunteers in the Village’s B Company; below, the garden is dedicated to the “glory of God” in memory of the “sons of Ulster” by “all of their comrades in arms who, by divine grace, were spared to testify to their glorious deeds.” (BelTel and Irish News articles on the unplanned inclusion of modern-day UVF.)
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Copyright © 2017 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Seosamh Mac Coille Collection 