Registration for voting in the May 5th Assembly election is coming to a close. You can register on-line at gov.uk. Currently, 1.4 million people are registered in Northern Ireland (BBC). As today’s images make clear, the poles of Belfast are already cluttered with placards for the various candidates, as well as the salient issues, such as the “sea border” and the death of Noah Donohoe.
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The Newington tribute to Bobby Sands and the other deceased hunger strikers of the 1970s and 80s (see previously: Mol An Óıge Agus Tıocfaıdh Sí) has been augmented with four plaques to republicans from the area who died in the Troubles: (l-r) Martin McDonagh, Rosemary Bleakley, Colm Mulgrew, and Sean ‘Maxi’ McIvenna.
Unbeknowst to her parents (Lost Lives), Bleakley had joined Cumann Na mBan at 18 and was four days short of her nineteenth birthday when she and McDonagh were killed in a premature bomb explosion in the North Street arcade (Victor Patterson image of the blast), along with civilians Ian Gallagher and Mary Dornan (Sutton); 20 others were injured (Fortnight). Bleakley was not buried in the republican plot (in Milltown) but coincidentally in the plot adjacent to Dornan (BBC).
Bleakley was portrayed in the old New Lodge Volunteers mural.
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This is an update to End The Sanctions! We’re Freezing, which has now been changed to “Sanctions only hurt ordinary people”, perhaps including the “ordinary people” of Russia alongside those of the New Lodge.
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The Russian invasion of Ukraine has increased pressure on already-climbing energy prices (Irish News | News Letter). Since March 1st, petrol is up 17 pence/litre and diesel up 35 pence (Bel Tel). Home heating fuel has gone up 50% and more in the same period (Consumer Council | BelTel). The New Lodge graffiti in today’s post suggest that residents are choosing eating rather than heating, and want sanctions to end. As an alternative, to help people pay for the higher prices the SDLP proposed (on March 10th) emergency legislation that would allow 300 million pounds from the NI block grant to be distributed to funds that help people pay their energy bills (web); there have also been calls to delay or scrap the introduction of the new National Insurance levy, due to come into effect in April. Support in the UK for further sanctions against Russia that would increase costs to individuals is just under 50% (IPSOS | Sky News).
See also: You Are Now Entering Freeze Derry
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Crossed arms are the symbol of the #BreakTheBias campaign, which is the theme of this year’s International Women’s day (IWD) and people all around the world are striking the pose on social media to show their support (e.g. tw) including this large mural in Belfast, which has been painted off Corporation Street.
By Visual Waste (web | ig), with support from Children In Crossfire (web) (see previously Derry Lama).
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The ‘bend in the road’ (Crumlin Road, just before Ligoniel) is the site of the Somme Memorial Cross. It’s not clear who erected or maintains it and indeed the Union flag flying behind it has been reduced to a stump.
A little further up the road, a new ‘cultural hub’ has been proposed for the site of the old Ligoniel Orange hall (Belfast Live) which was destroyed in a fire in 2000 (BBC).
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Here are two IRSP pieces commemorating the 40th anniversary of the 1981 hunger strike. The first, above and immediately below, is from Ard Eoın/Ardoyne (Béal Feırste/Belfast) with colour (or at least, colour-ised) portraits of the ten who died on either side of an image from Keven Lynch’s funeral cortège. It is the same as the board seen on the lower Falls in For A Socialist Republic. At the bottom is a poster from Strabane calling people to gather in remembrance in Derry.
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Here are five images from Duncairn Gardens, along the “peace” lines separating the New Lodge and Tigers Bay, in particular of a Noah Donohoe mural (below) and a pallet hut erected on the pavement (above) at the old Adam Street and site of the bonfire that was removed in 2021 – see Move At Your Own Risk.
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A new backdrop – of a field of poppies beneath a blue sky– has been added to the UFF memorial garden in Tigers Bay. The four stones/plaques in the garden are shown below in the order that they were added to the garden, starting with two to the North Belfast Brigade that were present in 2008 (see M04397). The third was a roll of honour of the “Scottish Brigade North Ayrshire”. The fourth is generically to “those we have loved and lost” but contains a strand of barbed wire, symbol of POWs.
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The moon rises over Thompson’s feed on York Road while the sun sets over the New Lodge tower blocks, most of which have the portraits of two deceased hunger strikers from the 70s and 80s on them, including Francis Hughes on Teach Mhéabha. (See New Lodge Flats for a full list.)
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Seosamh Mac Coille Collection 