Two new murals are going up side-by-side on the International Wall (Divis St.), a bookmark-style one for Marian Price and a large piece commemorating three IRA members killed in Gibraltar on March 6, 1988 (WP), IRA member Kevin McCracken who was killed on March 14th in Belfast, and the three who were killed by Michael Stone at the funerals of the ‘Gibraltar Three’ in Milltown cemetery, Belfast/Béal Feırste, on March 16th (WP).
We’ll have the finished pieces in a few days. Below, a wide shot of the Milltown scene, in progress, and below that, Marty Lyons working from a photograph of the incident, perhaps this second in this set, on which the left side of the mural is based, while the center and right-hand side are based on this one (by Bobby Ingram).
March 2013 is the 25th anniversary of the Michael Stone’s attack on mourners attending the burials of the Gibraltar 3 in Milltown cemetery. Stone killed three people. The mural combines images of mourners taking shelter from Stone’s attack with the civil war memorial in Ballyseedy, Co. Kerry (WP) which was famously connected to the Gibraltar 3 in a mural prepared for the return of the coffins to Belfast – see A Legitimate Right To Take Up Arms. (Here is a copy of Tragedies In Kerry.) Images of the mural in progress were presented in a separate entry. (See that post for the photographs on which the mural is based.) The Gibraltar 3 are portrayed on the left; Stone’s victims are on the right. In the top right is an IRA volunteer who had been shot two days earlier, on the night that the coffins of the Gibraltar 3 arrived in Belfast.
25 years ago – 1988 – puts us firmly in the era of video, and so you can see footage on youtube relating to each of these events:
Death On The Rock, a famous Thames Television production about the SAS killings of IRA members Maıréad Farrell, Danny McCann and Seán Savage on March 6th in Gibraltar.
Michael Stone’s attack on mourners at their funerals in Milltown cemetery, March 16th, which killed Thomas McErlean, John Murray, and Caoımhín Mac Brádaıgh (Kevin Brady).
The memorial depicted in the background of the mural is a civil war memorial in Ballyseedy, Co. Kerry (WP) which was famously connected to the Gibraltar 3 in a mural prepared for the return of the coffins to Belfast – see A Legitimate Right To Take Up Arms. Here is a copy of Tragedies In Kerry.
A small RNU (Republican Network for Unity, a dissident (political) group) mural and ONH (Óglaıgh Na hÉıreann, a faction of the Real IRA) stencil below the advertising hoarding at the corner of Northumberland Street and the International Wall on Divis Street.
ATMs make a popular spot for posting flyers. The two in white (“End Controlled Movement” and “End Strip Searching”) are recent additions to this Falls Road banklink.
A flyer on the Falls Road, with illustration by Brazilian artist Carlos Latuff (one | two), announcing a march commemorating Bloody Sunday, which occurred on January 30th, 1972 (WP). Bernadette (Devlin) McAliskey was (from 1969 onward) a spokesperson for nationalists in Derry and was present in 1972.
“Demand dignity – end forced evictions. Justice, hope, homes, rights, security.” Dollar bills spew from the exhaust pipes of bulldozers driven by cigar-smoking financiers as they bear down on a chain of protesters in this Amnesty International board at the corner of Northumberland and Beverley Streets. “Join Amnesty and take action for human rights worldwide http://www.amnesty.org.uk/join”
Stories from mythical Ireland including the Children Of Lear, Oısín & Nıamh, and the Salmon Of Knowledge are depicted in a 2006 mural painted by Mo Chara with the children of the Whiterock Children’s Centre.
Protests over the December 3rd vote not to fly the union jack every day at Belfast City Hall continued last night (2012-12-17 — video from BBC-NI | U.tv). The image above shows a flag flying on the loyalist side framed by the pedestrian gate on Northumberland Street. The image below shows one shot across the Cupar Way “peace” line, from Conway Street.
“You might easy know a doffer when she comes to town/With her long yellow hair and her pickers hanging down/With her rubber ties [tied] before her and her scraper in her hand. … [the verse concludes: She’ll never get a man]” (Traditional Music). Conway Mill closed in the mid-70s but from 1982 onward has been used for community development; since 2000 it has been a listed building (Conway Mill).
Seosamh Mac Coille Collection 