Belfast city centre

Sign There

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2015-02-23 UnityWalk1+

Here is another set of tags (after the selection from the Cupar Way “peace” line in Sign Here), this time from the city centre, specifically Unity Walk and Garfield Street.

2015-02-23 UnityWalk2+

(For NOTA (none of the above) see previously: CNB12 | The Sun Will Make You Blind | Belfast Butcher | Street Life | Keep ‘Er Lit)

2015-02-23 UnityWalk3+

2014-10-17 UnityWalkPanorama+

Compare 2014-10 with …

2015-02-23 UnityWalk4Hoze+

… 2015-02.

2014-07-02 NikoGarfield+

2014-07-02 NOTAGarfield+

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Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Unite The Union

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2015-02-28 TransportUnite+

Here are more images from the new ‘Unite – the union’ mural at Transport House. A separate entry features Jim Larkin, who, after the Belfast lockout, founded the Irish Transport & General Workers Union in 1909. The separate (Amalgamated) Transport & General Workers Union (headquartered in London) was formed in 1922. (Larkin’s old union NUDL, renamed the National Union of Dock, Riverside and General Workers in Great Britain and Ireland, joined soon after in the same year.) In 2007, the T&G merged with Amicus to form the current Unite – The Union. The TGWU’s base in Belfast was Transport House, a 1959 building by architect J.J. Brennan in the International style (C20) and a B1 listed building (wikimedia). As can be seen from the image of a female welder above, the new mural features the green tile squares of the building itself, as well as the string of workers in the large mosaic on the front.

2015-02-28 TransportFront+

2015-02-28 TransportWide+

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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Big Jim

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2015-02-28 TransportLarkin+

Big Jim Larkin spoke from the steps of the Custom House – a stone’s throw away from this new mural at Transport House in the city centre – in the early months of 1907, speaking on behalf of the dockers and other unskilled labourers, recruiting them to the National Union of Dock Workers, and ultimately organizing various strikes as part of what is now known as the ‘Belfast Lockout’, which stretched from April 26th to August 28th. Larkin was expelled from the NUDL and went on to form the Irish Transport & General Workers Union in 1909 and organize the Dublin Lockout in 1913. The rest of his history is equally dramatic, including arrest and imprisonment for ‘criminal anarchism’ in the US in 1919. (WP)

Here is an image of Larkin on the platform at a Belfast rally (mouse-over to enlarge), surrounded by workers wearing cloth caps.

2015-02-28 TransportClothCaps+

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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Space Exploration

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2015-02-14 DevlinNose+

Above is another Patrick Devlin stencil at the Red Barn Gallery. Extensive research has failed to reveal who/what the stencil is based on – some sort of nose-picking gorilla-monster in a cowl. Leave a comment or send an e-mail if you have an idea.

Previously by Devlin: Blowing My Mind | Attendez, Je Suis Charlie | Mr. Lee | The Passion

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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Attendez: Je Suis Charlie

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2015-02-14 DevlinChaplin+

Charlie Hedbo, the satirical Parisian weekly which became internationally known after a gun attack in January in which 12 were killed, is named after Charlie Brown (from Charles Schultz’s Peanuts) but the Charlie Chaplin above (as seen in The Kid) uses French to try to claim the name for himself. Chaplin and his family settled in French-speaking Switzerland after he was denied entry to the US as part of Joseph McCarthy’s witch-hunt of artists with alleged communist sympathies (WP). Stencil by Patrick Devlin in the city centre.

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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Fifty Shades Of Belfast

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2015-02-07 UpstairsMidCrop+

Jamie Dornan (from Holywood) and Gillian Anderson are stars of the BBC series The Fall. He plays a serial-killer terrorizing Belfast and she the detective leading the investigation. Anderson is not shown here as she appears in The Fall, but in the style of Fifty Shades OfGrey, the BDSM-explicit novel by E. L. James, which has now been made into a movie, starring Dornan. It goes on general release tomorrow, Valentine’s Day, February 14th.

The panel above is one of a dozen from the new “upstairs” part of the Belfast Windows piece by Ciaran Gallagher (web) in the courtyard of the Dark Horse/Duke Of York. As Ciaran himself warns on his Facebook page, the “upstairs” material is adult and “not for the faint-hearted”. Below you can see the middle quartet: in the attic, a semi-nude woman behind bars with a menacing face in the background; on the left, Romper Room is on the TV and the skinhead sports a Mr. Do-Bee tattoo, but this is a UDA romper room, not kids’ playtime: two hoods take baseball bats to a victim; and in the middle, a pot-smoking policeman (in RUC/early-PSNI uniform) stands under the grow-lights of a cannabis factory.

For the “downstairs” part of the work, see Belfast, You’re Melting My Head | Belfast Stripped Bare.

2015-02-07 UpstairsMid+

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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Teenage Dreams

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2015-02-07 UpstairsRight+

Here are the three right-most panels from Ciaran Gallagher’s (web) “Upstairs” in the Dark Horse/Duke Of York courtyard:

On the left, a young (and left-handed) Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol images himself as a future rock star as he plays the broom, beneath an Undertones sign, “Teenage dreams, so hard to beat”, reflected in the mirror. (Drummer Jonny Quinn worked at Good Vibrations as a youth.)

In the middle, a mature Rory McIlroy relives a moment from age nine, when he appeared on the Gerry Kelly show on UTv and chipped balls into a washing machine.

And finally, Carl “The Jackal” Frampton lets out a roar after beating Spaniard Kiko Martinez to become IBF world super-bantamweight champion in September 2014. He defends his title this Saturday (2015-02-28).

In the attic: Deep Throat, not the Watergate scandal but the porno, both 1972.

See previously: Fifty Shades Of Belfast, featuring The Fall (from television) and Romper Room (not from television).

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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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