A (Hit The North) Paint Jam was held on Saturday (the 25th) in Lower Garfield Street, organised by Seedhead Arts (ig) and the Belfast Improvement District (BID web). Shown below are Laura Nelson (ig), NRMN (ig), and Ollie Amscai (ig).
For images of all the completed works, see the entry at the Paddy Duffy Collection.
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“DUP backs united Ireland in coming border poll, Mon, 5th May”. This image updates one of the images from two weeks ago of the re-painted mural at Madden’s bar in the city centre – see Sásta A Bheıth Anseo. Initially the newspaper showed a headline relating to the prosecution of DUP (now-former) leader Jeffrey Donaldson on charges of rape and sexual assault.
The DUP in January flirted (strategically) with the idea of supporting a border poll (BBC) but their more typical stance is that the conditions for a poll are not close to being met (News Letter).
While elections sometimes fall on the 5th as the first Thursday in May – most recently the 2022 Assembly elections (CAIN) – the date here is probably a nod to the anniversary of Bobby Sands’s death (in 1981).
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Here is a gallery of seven pieces of stained glass in Belfast City Hall. BCC has a guide to all of the stained-glass windows in the Hall.
1 (above): North Irish Horse, and in particular, the WWII battles it participated in (listed at the bottom of the window).
2 (below): Spanish Civil War
3 Cú Chulaınn – seen previously in Ulster’s Defence Force. See also the Visual History page In The Shadow Of Cú Chulaınn.
4: The Dockers’ Strike – seen previously in One Big Union.
5: The Famine Window. See also the Visual History page on The Great Hunger.
6: The Pathways Window – according to the guide, this window commemorates the pain caused to the relatives of deceased persons from whom organs were taken without consent.
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Leo Boyd (web) returns to a familiar subject – the PSNI land-rover – this time going over the edge into deep water. See previously: Freshly Made For You | Winding Up The Peelers | 999 99 | Peeling In The Sun | X-Wing Land Rover | My First Meat Wagon (which dates back to 2018). Also: My 1st Meat Wagon in Paddy Duffy’s collection.
Church Street, Belfast city centre
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In this new statue in the grounds of Belfast city hall, Mary Ann McCracken is shown handing out abolitionist leaflets with a pleading enslaved woman above the words “Am I not a woman and a sister?” The same supplicant image is on the medallion (perhaps made by Wedgwood for the Society For The Abolition Of The Slave Trade – WP) worn at her throat. See also: The Blots On The Page Are So Black and The World Affords No Enjoyment Equal To That Of Promoting The Happiness Of Others.
“Mary Ann McCracken’s feminist ideals and commitment to the principles of Equality, Liberty, Fraternity applying equally to the Rights of Woman defined her participation in the United Irish Movement.” For McCracken’s connection to the 1798 Rebellion, see These Are Times That Try Men’s Souls.
“Mary Ann McCracken (1770-1866) Abolitionist, educator, social reformer and businesswoman. Sheas Mary Ann an fód ar son na mbocht, na mban, na bpáıstí agus ar son sıúd a bhí faoi dhaoırse. [Mary Ann stood up for the poor, women, children, and for those who were enslaved.]”
The statue was unveiled together with a statue to Winifred Carney on International Women’s Day (March 8th); they were produced by Ralf and Naomi Sander (BCC).
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A statue to Winifred Carney was unveiled, along with another to Mary Ann McCracken, in the grounds of Belfast City Hall on Friday, March 8th (BCC). At her left hand is a typewriter. Carney was a qualified secretary and typist, and became secretary of the Irish Textile Workers’ Union in 1912, in which position she met James Connolly, who was secretary of the Belfast branch of the ITGWU. The 1913 manifesto addressed ‘To The Linen Slaves Of Belfast’ (marxists.org), exhorting “our toiling sisters” in the mills to join the organisation, was signed by Carney, Connolly, and Ellen Gordon.
Her uniform, and the amorphous pistol (or holster?) in her right hand, refer to her membership of Cumann Na mBan and participation in the Easter Rising of 1916. Carney was in the GPO when it was taken over and was among those who surrendered at the end; during the occupation she typed up dispatches from the Moore Street headquarters. A News Letter editorial described the statue as smuggling terrorists onto the grounds of city hall.
(DIB | Ulster Biography). (A Century Of Women | BBC | WP)
In the final image, Carney’s statue is shown with the statue of Unionist MP and lord mayor of Belfast Sir James Haslett in the background.
Carney is at the centre of the Ireland Of Equals mural in north Belfast. Antrim Road was renamed in her honour in 2015.
“Winifred Carney, born in Bangor, was a suffragist and a committed trade unionist. She was an organiser in the Irish Textile Workers’ Union and became James Connolly’s personal secretary, political confidante and friend. In 1913, She and Connolly wrote the Irish Textile Workers’ Union manifesto entitled ‘To the Linen Slaves of Belfast’. It was a time when Belfast workers, mostly women and children, were working long hours in horrific conditions, barefoot and hungry. “D’oıbrıgh Winnie ar son oıbrıthe Bhéal Feırste, go háırıthe ar son na mban agus na bpáıstí a bhíodh ag obaır sna muılte ar fud na cathrach. “Many Belfast mills are slaughterhouses for the women and penitentiaries for the children.” Chomh maıth leıs an obaır a rınne sí ar son na gceardchumann, ba Phoblachtánach í Winnie a bhí ına ball de Chumann na mBan agus d’Arm Cathartha na hÉıreann. As an officer in the Irish Citizen Army, Winnie was present with Connolly in the Dublin General Post Office during the 1916 Easter Rising and has since become known as ‘the typist with the Webley’. Carney stood as a Sınn Féın candidate in the 1918 elections, but in an ‘unwinnable’ seat. She retained her commitment to socialism and in 1924, Winifred joined the Northern Ireland Labour Party. Here she met her future husband, George McBride, like her a committed socialist. George was a Protestant from Shankill Road who fought at The Battle of the Somme with the 36th (Ulster) Division. Tá Winnie curtha ı Reılıg Bhaıle an Mhuılınn ar Bhóthar na bhFál ın ıarthar Bhéal Feırste.”
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Samuel Ferguson was born in Belfast in 1810 and after studying law at Trinity College settled in Dublin (WP | paywalled 1886 Memoriam). Some of his poems were based on the pre-Celtic myths, such as ‘Tain Quest‘ on the Táın Bó Cúaılgne, and ‘Congal‘ on the Cath Mhaıgh Rátha. (Ian Adamson later (in 1980) published Ferguson’s Congal as The Battle Of Moira, which featured a cover by Jim Fitzpatrick – see the end of the Visual History page on Fitzpatrick).
Words from Ferguson’s poem ‘Conary‘ (one of the Lays Of The Red Branch) are included at the base of the Dalaradia Window, a free-standing piece of stained glass in the Linen Hall Library (web): “Robed in red mantles and with caps of red/No swords had they, nor bore they spear or shield/But each man on his knee a bagpipe held.”
The image above shows the bó at the centre of the Táın, Donn Cúaılgne (the brown bull of Cooley), at the centre of Window, which is shown complete below; the other elements of the Window are detailed in this Dalaradia publication (pdf). A painted version of the Window can be seen in Kragfargus Cultural Corner.
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This face is by Birmingham graffiti artist Fum.Armada (ig), in North Street, Belfast. There is another from Union Street in the Paddy Duffy collection.
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“When it comes to punk, New York has the haircuts, London has the trousers, but Belfast has the reason.” – Terri Hooley in 2012’s Good Vibrations (IMDb).
The final incarnation of Hooley’s Good Vibrations record shop (Fb) closed in North Street in 2015 (BelTel). It began in October 1976 at 102 Great Victoria Street (Spit Records | Louder Than War | Spit Records) — the shop and Hooley are included, along with footage of the Undertones, Outcasts, Stiff Little Fingers, and many others — in the 1979 documentary Shellshock Rock (UK viewers can watch at BFI | Spit Records has a great write-up of events surrounding the film’s launch).
The new mural is close to the shop’s second location (from roughly 1984-1993), on the other side of the road, at 121 Great Victoria Street, which itself has had “Good Vibrations” signage reinstated by Zippy (ig) – one of the new pieces around the corner on 127 Great Victoria Street that can be seen in the entry in the Paddy Duffy collection.
Big Time Punk is in Stroud Street, painted by Peaball, specifically RAZER (ig) and NOYS (ig).
The plaque (final image) outside the Harp Bar (in Hill Street) reads, “For the contribution made by Terri Hooley and the role of Good Vibrations to Belfast’s music heritage and putting Belfast on the international music map. The Harp Bar and its shared history of the people and bands who played here. The Outcasts, Rudi, SLF, The Defects, The Undertones and many more 1978-1982.”
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“Since 2012” and lasting until the undetermined year “XXXX”. Protests against the restricted flying of the Union Flag at City Hall were held on a daily basis in the winter of 2012-2013 after the Council’s vote on December 3rd. It became a weekly protest perhaps in the spring and a group of die-hards continues to meet each Saturday. There does not seem to be a functioning public social media channel for “Loyal People’s Protest”; the numbers might be small enough that a private group chat is sufficient. The male in the top right of the placard is unknown; there have previously been media profiles of Billy and Ann Dickson (Belfast Live).
For background links, see Union Jack – Donegall Pass.
Previously from the railings: Eddie Supports The Flag. A tarp from earlier protests: British And Proud.
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Seosamh Mac Coille Collection 