“Go to the zebra [crossing] if you can and wait for the lollipop man.” “Don’t be a [clown], slow down!”
Public safety mural in Beechmount Avenue/Ascaill Ard na bhFeá, west Belfast
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2012 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X05192
“4,400 Palestinian political prisoners, 310 administrative detention. No to Israeli administrative detention! Hunger strike!” with portraits of Hanna Shalabi and Khadner Adnan. Adnan went on strike to protest his violent arrest and interrogation, and detention without trial (“administrative detention”); he reached a deal after 66 days (BBC). Shalabi went on hunger strike to protest her detention without trial; she reached a deal and ended the strike after 43 days (The World). Both were alleged to be members of Islamic Jihad.
International Wall, Divis Street, west Belfast
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2012 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X00862
“Strong is what we make each other until we are strong together.” Women in struggle, (clockwise) banging binlids, undergoing strip searches, protesting internment, victims of plastic bullets (Julie Livingstone), fighting in Cumann Na mBan. On the right are the astrological symbol for woman and the republican symbol of “Saoirse” with the green star and fist. With “Free Marian Price” graffiti.
Dungloe Crescent, Lenadoon, west Belfast
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2012 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X00861
The impending resurrection of Titanic looms overhead, a new and shiny “reason to visit Belfast” in contrast with the boarded up houses on Lawnbrook Avenue.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright 2012 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X00553 festival 31 march – 22 april ni 2012 our time our place ni2012.com
Linfield FC is a south-Belfast soccer club. The 1961-1962 season is one of two seven-trophy seasons in the club’s history, the first being 40 years previously in 1921-1922 (WP).
Vanguard Bears is a Rangers supporters club.
Sugarfield Street, upper Shankill, west Belfast
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2012 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X00856
“End forced strip searches, end internment [at] Maghaberry concentration camp”. Republican prisoners are held in the Roe House at Maghaberry. Several republican prisoners (as many as five) are conducting a “dirty protest” in response to conditions and treatment, including integration with loyalist prisoners (Irish Echo | BBC). The green ribbon as an emblem goes back to the campaign after the ceasefire to release POWs — here is a mural from 1995.
International Wall, Divis Street, west Belfast
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2012 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X05221
Jesus Of Nazareth with a crown of thorns – a stencil of unknown provenance at the shops next to the Andersonstown Iceland (long ago the Busy Bee).
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2012 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X00827
IRA volunteer Francis Liggett was shot by the British Army in January 1973 as he attempted to rob the Royal. One of the images of Gerry Adams in paramilitary beret comes from Liggett’s funeral. Paddy Brady was a Sınn Féın activist shot in 1984 at his work by the UFF (Sutton). Both were from the St James’s area of west Belfast. Their portraits are on either side of Éıre personified. The verses are from Bobby Sands’s poem Weeping Winds.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2012 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X00454
This is a wide shot of the ‘dockers and carters’ mural in Northumberland Street, seen previously (in 2007) in two pieces. To the left is RIC Murder Gang; to the right is IRSP POWs.
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2011 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X05087
“Since 1970 seventeen people killed [by rubber and plastic bullets] – including 8 children.” Central is Norah McCabe, along with Julie Livingstone, Brian Stewart, and Carol Ann Kelly; on the left are John Downes and Keith White, a Protestant killed in Portadown in 1986.
Islandbawn Street, west Belfast
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2011 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X00522
Seosamh Mac Coille Collection 