“Striking, I Defend.” UDA murals in Lord Street, below the Albertbridge Road, accented by Union jacks (and, as can be seen in the wide shot, below, a pair of silver bells). The mural in the background of the wide shot is featured in All Gave Some.
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Copyright © 2013 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X00912 X00933 LPA UDA UFF UYM edith street est. 1973 free our prisoners
They say (some) shows on TV these days are good for you, because they are so complex in structure and signification. The citizens of Belfast are well up to the task, one suspects, as they get plenty of practice just walking down the street (in this case, the Newtownards Road): the Union flag is the most familiar signifier of the group, the fake storefronts (more) might take a moment to process (and make life difficult for bloggers differentiating between murals and street scenes), and one can then attempt to unscramble the meaning of adipose tissue (a.k.a. fat) of a bare-chested man spreading over his “cancer”-banded underwear. The store to the right of (the fake) Marie’s is coincidentally called “Body Language”! See image below ….
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Copyright © 2013 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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In an alley running between the backs of houses off Lord Street, the paint-ghost of a child ‘keeper tends goal. Wide shot below …
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Copyright © 2013 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Christmas decorations can still be found on poles around Belfast in late January. In some cases, as here, they are joined by Union flags.
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Copyright © 2013 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Walk over the Albert Bridge onto the Short Strand and just before you turn into Mountpottinger Road on your left there is a little park known as ‘An Glas – The Green’; these jigsaw pieces can be seen there, hanging on the wire fencing facing out onto the main road. See the wide shot and text below for more about the project. Launched 2008-11 (BBC-NI).
Frankie Quinn of the Red Barn Gallery has a a photograph of the two little boys in the bottom left of the board as adults. Also in the background (proceeding anti-clockwise) one can see MickeyMarley’s Roundabout and the old Scirocco Works factory, as well as the Harland & Wolff cranes Samson and Goliath, Belfast CityHall, and the wire sculpture next to the Waterfront.
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Copyright © 2013 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X00907 X00908 final piece to the jig-saw; this artwork came about by the working in partnership with a number of community groups schools and agencies namely the lower castlereagh community group short strand community forum beechfield primary school st. matthews primary conflect resolution consortium the core project northern ireland housing executive and the relations council; had the idea of an interface art project involving that are situation along the interface; also approached the artists for the project who are two east belfast artists; worked with the young people involved to come up with the idea as to what the artwork should look like with the end result being a picture taken of all the smiling and laughing together and then their eyes and moths taken out of the picuture and portrayed on the big pieces on the interface wall
Graffiti in east Belfast concerning the on-going dispute over the union flag on Belfast City Hall: Be proud to fly your flag. No surrender!
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Copyright © 2013 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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This is the fourth version of the UFF mural on the first gable in “Freedom Corner” along the Newtownards Road but the changes are minor compared with the 2009 version: the jacket and skyline are darker in colour. The mural shows a balaclava’d volunteer with assault rifle and a modified version of the Declaration of Arbroath: “For as long as one hundred of us remain alive we shall never in anyway consent to submit to the Irish for it’s not for glory, honour or riches we fight but for freedom alone which no man loses but with his life – U.D.A./U.F.F”
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Lord Street mural the ERII’s golden (50th) jubilee in 2002. The Beaconsfield Arms is on the left (perhaps the name of the Cock & Hens in 1952) and the previous Ledley Hall school (now Ledley Hall youth club) is on the right.
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Copyright © 2013 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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A UVF mural featuring three masked paramilitaries over the car park of Iceland (a supermarket chain) on the Newtownards Rd. The line “We are the pilgrims, master; we shall go always a little further” comes from a 1913 poem by James Flecker. This mural was painted in May 2011, at a time when, in contrast, paramilitary murals were being replaced (BBC-NI). The in-progress shot below is from 2011-05-28.
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Copyright © 2011 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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A mural by artist Deirdre Robb (of Creative Exchange Artists) in Tower Street/Newtownards Road of flax plants, somewhat reminiscent of van Gogh’s Irises. (Leave a comment if you detect another inspiration.) The official title is “Urban Meadows” (Robb).
The painting is on a tarp or canvas that is not firmly affixed to the wall, which allows the painting to move in the wind. The wall and the “pocket park” are on the site of the former RHC mural.
7 min. video of Deirdre talking about the pieces in her exhibit ‘Blue’
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Copyright © 2013 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Seosamh Mac Coille Collection 