Belfast city centre

On The Hall’s Walls

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2014-02-24 ODonghailleFull+

Each Lord Mayor of Belfast has an official portrait which hangs in Belfast City Hall. 2011-2012 Lord Mayor Nıall Ó Donnghaıle’s takes the unusual form of a mini-mural, in the shape of a gable wall and complete with mortar lines. The portrait features a “Short Strand” street-plate (Ó Donnghaıle is from there), images of Titanic, James Connolly – a portrait was mounted at a SIPTU event in the mayor’s chambers in October 2011, after pictures of the royal family had been removed in June, protesters, and an MTV mug. The artist talks about the piece on Slugger (audio) and CultureNI has a good write-up about the process.

Below are a detail from Ó Donnghaıle’s portrait and the more typical portrait of Tom Hartley, Lord Mayor 2008-2009, which includes the bicycle he is famous for riding around town.

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One Big Union

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2014-02-19 CityHallWindow+

“Not as Catholics or Protestants, not as Nationalists or Unionists, but as Belfast workers standing together.” Belfast City Hall has a number of colourful stained-glass windows, one of which is shown here. It features Belfast industry and Jim Larkin who, while more famous for the Dublin lock-out of 1913, also led a strike by the National Union Of Dock Labourers (NUDL) in Belfast in 1907. In 1908 the ITGWU (the One Big Union, OBU) was formed.

Previous posts involving Larkin: Til Labour Knows No Master | We Only Want The Earth | Shed Lockout | John Quinn

Video of the unveiling, in May 2007

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Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb

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2014-01-29 DroneRanger+

Yesterday (29 January, 2014) marks the 50th anniversary of Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, currently#42 on IMDb’s list of greatest films. (See the image below, which includes Slim Pickens as T. J. “King” Kong riding a bomb to mutually assured destruction. Peter Sellers intended to play the role, alongside his three others; see also this New Yorker magazine retrospective “Almost Everything in “Dr. Strangelove” Was True”.) 

The movie retains its relevance in 2014, as evidenced by this stencil in Fountain Street, protesting the use of drone technology by the US in the mideast and Pakistan. Next the stencil of a cowboy riding a drone are the words “The Drone Ranger Tour 2014 – Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria”.

As can be seen in the wide shot below, this piece is next to the Obama ‘I See You‘ (and round the corner from the ‘Don’t Drone Me, Bro‘ stencil).

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At Sea

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2014-01-29 StBrendan+

The Stella Maris Hostel (in Garmoyle Street) provides services to homeless alcoholics. Above their door is this mosaic of St. Brendan, off “crossing the Atlantic 600 AD” to discover (what would later become) North America (though perhaps it was only the Faroes or the Canaries or … ) in a boat clad in nothing more than leather.

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Make Art Not Bombs

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2013-12-19 MakeArt+

London-based Greek street artist ‘The Krah’ is in Belfast at the moment and has just (December 15th and 16th) produced these two new pieces in Garfield Street. Above is ‘Make art not bombs’ and below is a yellow head. ‘Make art not bombs’ was perhaps inspired by witnessing a bomb scare in the city centre this week (Fb | Web).

Replaces Not criminals. Just … Thugz

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The first piece replaces this “Be excellent to each other/tynee bear” piece, below.

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Gas Masked

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2013-12-19 GasMasked+

This piece – a small figure in white made grotesque by a gas mask, with the This Means Nothing hand in the background – is in North Street, originally next to Praise’s ‘Dot‘ (and the ‘Get Paid’ crosses, which are still on the electrical box) from Culture Night 2012, and now between DMC’s Long Runs The Fox and Visual Waste’s ‘bird snatching boy’ (Carried Away).

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No Topless Bathing – Ulster Has Suffered Enough

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2013-11-16 SunflowerFront+

The Sunflower pub in Union Street has added a sign replicating the graffiti that stood for a long time two blocks further along the street (at the junction with Little Donegall Street): No Topless Bathing – Ulster Has Suffered Enough. An image of the graffiti appears on Flickr user James Hughes’s page. CAIN reports that another version was in Upper Queen Street in 1999. The Union Street graffiti is also the version that inspired a 2005 gallery show of the same name, except that the show had “Belfast” in the title; an image of a “Belfast” version, which is perhaps an altered version of the Union Street “Ulster” version, appears on the show’s page at Green Dog Arts.

The graphics on the rear of the building were done by Malarky (Fb) for Culture Night Belfast 2013.

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